Page:Hugh Pendexter--Kings of the Missouri.djvu/211



RIDGER now made every effort to reach the rendezvous on Green River ahead of the A. F. C. outfit. He hurried his company by Independence Rock, through the Devil's Gate, then up the Sweetwater for six days to the divide. Although it was uncomfortably warm on the plains the water in the camp-kettles was coated with a quarter of an inch of ice the night they camped on the divide.

Five days later they arrived at the Green—named Rio Verde by the Spanish explorers in 1818, and known as the Siskadee, or Prairie Hen, by the Crows. Camp was pitched a few miles from Horse Creek, and on the first day was invaded by several hundred Nez Percés and Flatheads—who never flattened the head—and fully three hundred traders and trappers. Many of the trappers were Bridger's men who had