of course, and a general fight, according to frontier usage.  The two factions drew out their forces for a pitched battle.  They fell to work and belabored each other with might and main; kicks and cuffs and dry blows were as well bestowed as they were well merited, until, having fought to their hearts’ content, and been drubbed into a familiar acquaintance with each other’s prowess and good qualities, they ended the fight by becoming firmer friends than they could have been rendered by a year’s peaceable companionship.

While Captain Bonneville amused himself by observing the habits and characteristics of this singular class of men, and indulged them, for the time, in all their vagaries, he profited by the opportunity to collect from them information concerning the different parts of the country about which they had been accustomed to range; the characters of the tribes, and, in short, everything important to his enterprise.  He also succeeded in securing the services of several to guide and aid him in his peregrinations among the mountains, and to trap for him during the ensuing season.  Having strengthened his party with such valuable recruits, he felt in some measure consoled for the loss of the Delaware Indians, decoyed from him by Mr Fontenelle.

8.

Plans for the winter—­Salmon River—­Abundance of salmon west of the mountains—­New arrangements—­Caches—­Cerre’s detachment—­Movements in—­Fontenelle’s camp—­Departure of the—­Blackfeet—­Their fortunes—­Wind—­Mountain streams—­ Buckeye, the Delaware hunter, and the grizzly bear—­Bones of murdered travellers—­Visit to Pierre’s Hole—­Traces of the battle—­Nez—­Perce—­Indians—­Arrival at—­Salmon River

The information derived from the free trappers determined Captain Bonneville as to his further movements.  He learned that in the Green River valley the winters were severe, the snow frequently falling to the depth of several feet; and that there was no good wintering ground in the neighborhood.  The upper part of Salmon River was represented as far more eligible, besides being in an excellent beaver country; and thither the captain resolved to bend his course.

The Salmon River is one of the upper branches of the Oregon or Columbia; and takes its rise from various sources, among a group of mountains to the northwest of the Wind River chain.  It owes its name to the immense shoals of salmon which ascend it in the months of September and October.  The salmon on the west side of the Rocky Mountains are, like the buffalo on the eastern plains, vast migratory supplies for the wants of man, that come and go with the seasons.  As the buffalo in countless throngs find their certain way in the transient pasturage on the prairies, along the fresh banks of the rivers, and up every valley and green defile of the mountains, so the salmon, at their allotted seasons, regulated by a sublime and all-seeing Providence, swarm in myriads up the great rivers, and find their way up their main branches, and into the minutest tributory streams; so as to pervade the great arid plains, and to penetrate even among barren mountains.  Thus wandering tribes are fed in the desert places of the wilderness, where there is no herbage for the animals of the chase, and where, but for these periodical supplies, it would be impossible for man to subsist.