This done he set out for Malade River, with a band of twenty-eight men composed of hired and free trappers and Indian hunters, together with eight squaws.  Their route lay up along the right fork of Salmon River, as it passes through the deep defile of the mountains.  They travelled very slowly, not above five miles a day, for many of the horses were so weak that they faltered and staggered as they walked.  Pasturage, however, was now growing plentiful.  There was abundance of fresh grass, which in some places had attained such height as to wave in the wind.  The native flocks of the wilderness, the mountain sheep, as they are called by the trappers, were continually to be seen upon the hills between which they passed, and a good supply of mutton was provided by the hunters, as they were advancing toward a region of scarcity.

In the course of his journey Captain Bonneville had occasion to remark an instance of the many notions, and almost superstitions, which prevail among the Indians, and among some of the white men, with respect to the sagacity of the beaver.  The Indian hunters of his party were in the habit of exploring all the streams along which they passed, in search of “beaver lodges,” and occasionally set their traps with some success.  One of them, however, though an experienced and skilful trapper, was invariably unsuccessful.  Astonished and mortified at such unusual bad luck, he at length conceived the idea that there was some odor about his person of which the beaver got scent and retreated at his approach.  He immediately set about a thorough purification.  Making a rude sweating-house on the banks of the river, he would shut himself up until in a reeking perspiration, and then suddenly emerging, would plunge into the river.  A number of these sweatings and plungings having, as he supposed, rendered his person perfectly “inodorous,” he resumed his trapping with renovated hope.

About the beginning of April they encamped upon Godin’s River, where they found the swamp full of “musk-rat houses.”  Here, therefore, Captain Bonneville determined to remain a few days and make his first regular attempt at trapping.  That his maiden campaign might open with spirit, he promised the Indians and free trappers an extra price for every musk-rat they should take.  All now set to work for the next day’s sport.  The utmost animation and gayety prevailed throughout the camp.  Everything looked auspicious for their spring campaign.  The abundance of musk-rats in the swamp was but an earnest of the nobler game they were to find when they should reach the Malade River, and have a capital beaver country all to themselves, where they might trap at their leisure without molestation.

In the midst of their gayety a hunter came galloping into the camp, shouting, or rather yelling, “A trail! a trail!—­lodge poles! lodge poles!”

These were words full of meaning to a trapper’s ear.  They intimated that there was some band in the neighborhood, and probably a hunting party, as they had lodge poles for an encampment.  The hunter came up and told his story.  He had discovered a fresh trail, in which the traces made by the dragging of lodge poles were distinctly visible.  The buffalo, too, had just been driven out of the neighborhood, which showed that the hunters had already been on the range.