Such is the mountaineer, the hardy
trapper of the West; and such, as we have slightly sketched it, is the
wild, Robin Hood kind of life, with all its strange and motley populace,
now existing in full vigor among the Rocky Mountains.
Having thus given the reader some idea of the actual state of the fur
trade in the interior of our vast continent, and made him acquainted
with the wild chivalry of the mountains, we will no longer delay the
introduction of Captain Bonneville and his band into this field of their
enterprise, but launch them at once upon the perilous plains of the Far
West.
2.
Departure from--Fort Osage--Modes of transportation--Pack-
horses--Wagons--Walker and Cerre; their characters--Buoyant
feelings on launching upon the prairies--Wild equipments of
the trappers--Their gambols and antics--Difference of
character between the American and French trappers--Agency
of the Kansas--General--Clarke--White Plume, the Kansas
chief--Night scene in a trader's camp--Colloquy between--
White Plume and the captain--Bee-hunters--Their
expeditions--Their feuds with the Indians--Bargaining talent
of White Plume
IT WAS ON THE FIRST of May, 1832, that Captain Bonneville took his
departure from the frontier post of Fort Osage, on the Missouri. He had
enlisted a party of one hundred and ten men, most of whom had been
in the Indian country, and some of whom were experienced hunters and
trappers.
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