Just as the different parties were about to set out on the 3d of July,
on their opposite routes, Captain Bonneville received intelligence that
Wyeth, the indefatigable leader of the salmon-fishing enterprise, who
had parted with him about a year previously on the banks of the Bighorn,
to descend that wild river in a bull boat, was near at hand, with a new
levied band of hunters and trappers, and was on his way once more to the
banks of the Columbia.
As we take much interest in the novel enterprise of this "eastern man,"
and are pleased with his pushing and persevering spirit; and as his
movements are characteristic of life in the wilderness, we will, with
the reader's permission, while Captain Bonneville is breaking up his
camp and saddling his horses, step back a year in time, and a few
hundred miles in distance to the bank of the Bighorn, and launch
ourselves with Wyeth in his bull boat; and though his adventurous voyage
will take us many hundreds of miles further down wild and wandering
rivers; yet such is the magic power of the pen, that we promise to bring
the reader safe to Bear River Valley, by the time the last horse is
saddled.
41.
A voyage in a bull boat.
IT was about the middle of August (1833) that Mr. Nathaniel J. Wyeth,
as the reader may recollect, launched his bull boat at the foot of
the rapids of the Bighorn, and departed in advance of the parties of
Campbell and Captain Bonneville.
Pages:
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375