Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/170

120 and I thought that if there ever was a place rightly named, it surely was this section of country. We were three days crossing this God-forsaken country; and we would often travel a half day without seeing a living thing of any description. From there we struck across the main divide of the Rocky Mountains, and were three days crossing over to the headwaters of Green river, and were somewhat disappointed when we learned that Green river had been trapped over by the Hudson Bay Company the year before. However, we were there, and it was too late to look up another trapping-ground, so we occupied some of the old cabins that had been erected by the Hudson Bay Company and went to trapping.

Notwithstanding the country had all been trapped over, we had fair success, or, at least, much better than we expected. We stayed there and trapped until some time in February, when we pulled up and moved down Green river nearly twenty miles and there we trapped for two weeks, but not with as good success as we had had at the old camp.

We again moved camp down to what was known as Hell's Hole. There we found about forty French Canadians trapping for the Hudson Bay Company, who, by the way, had plenty of bad whiskey. They were not very friendly toward the new arrivals.

Among the party was a big fellow by the name of Shewman, that seemed to think himself a very bad man; he did not appear to have any love or respect for any American trapper, which was the case with the general run of those French Canadians who were in the employ of the Hudson Bay Company.