Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/379

Rh it much deeper than we had any idea of. This was the last trouble with Indians on that trip.

The next morning we started very early, and were three days making Fort Hall, having no trouble whatever on the way. On arriving at the Fort we were very much disappointed in regard to raising our crowd to go to the head of the Missouri river to trap the coming winter. There were only about twenty trappers at Fort Hall at that time, and they appeared to have no particular objections to living a little while longer. Those of them who had never interviewed the Blackfoot and Crow Indians personally were pretty well acquainted with them by reputation, and they said they did not care to risk their lives in that country. We remained here two weeks, after which time--Uncle Kit's wound getting considerable better--Jim Bridger, Uncle Kit and myself concluded to go on to the waters of Green river and trap the coming winter.

While here, Jim Beckwith fell in with a man by the name of Reese, who said he had trapped on the headwaters of Snake river the winter previous, and that trapping was good there. He induced Beckwith to go to that section of the country, saying it was only one hundred miles from Fort Hall. This trapping ground was immediately across the divide of the Rockies and south of the Gallatin, where the Blackfoot and Crow Indians were so bad, but Reese thought they could get out the next spring before the Indians could get across the mountains.

So he and Beckwith started, and at the same time we pulled out for the head of Green river. They went to the head of Snake river, and I afterwards learned that they