The Crow country has other natural curiosities, which are held in superstitious awe by the Indians, and considered great marvels by the trappers.  Such is the Burning Mountain, on Powder River, abounding with anthracite coal.  Here the earth is hot and cracked; in many places emitting smoke and sulphurous vapors, as if covering concealed fires.  A volcanic tract of similar character is found on Stinking River, one of the tributaries of the Bighorn, which takes its unhappy name from the odor derived from sulphurous springs and streams.  This last mentioned place was first discovered by Colter, a hunter belonging to Lewis and Clarke’s exploring party, who came upon it in the course of his lonely wanderings, and gave such an account of its gloomy terrors, its hidden fires, smoking pits, noxious streams, and the all-pervading “smell of brimstone,” that it received, and has ever since retained among trappers, the name of “Colter’s Hell!”

Resuming his descent along the left bank of the Popo Agie, Captain Bonneville soon reached the plains; where he found several large streams entering from the west.  Among these was Wind River, which gives its name to the mountains among which it takes its rise.  This is one of the most important streams of the Crow country.  The river being much swollen, Captain Bonneville halted at its mouth, and sent out scouts to look for a fording place.  While thus encamped, he beheld in the course of the afternoon a long line of horsemen descending the slope of the hills on the opposite side of the Popo Agie.  His first idea was that they were Indians; he soon discovered, however, that they were white men, and, by the long line of pack-horses, ascertained them to be the convoy of Campbell, which, having descended the Sweet Water, was now on its way to the Horn River.

The two parties came together two or three days afterwards, on the 4th of August, after having passed through the gap of the Littlehorn Mountain.  In company with Campbell’s convoy was a trapping party of the Rocky Mountain Company, headed by Fitzpatrick; who, after Campbell’s embarkation on the Bighorn, was to take charge of all the horses, and proceed on a trapping campaign.  There were, moreover, two chance companions in the rival camp.  One was Captain Stewart, of the British army, a gentleman of noble connections, who was amusing himself by a wandering tour in the Far West; in the course of which, he had lived in hunter’s style; accompanying various bands of traders, trappers, and Indians; and manifesting that relish for the wilderness that belongs to men of game spirit.

The other casual inmate of Mr. Campbell’s camp was Mr. Nathaniel Wyeth; the self-same leader of the band of New England salmon fishers, with whom we parted company in the valley of Pierre’s Hole, after the battle with the Blackfeet.  A few days after that affair, he again set out from the rendezvous in company with Milton Sublette and his brigade of trappers.  On his march, he visited the battle