broached a small keg of "alcohol," which they had brought
with them to enliven this merry meeting. The liquor went briskly round;
all absent friends were toasted, and the party moved forward to the
rendezvous in high spirits.

The meeting of associated bands, who have been separated from each other
on these hazardous enterprises, is always interesting; each having its
tales of perils and adventures to relate. Such was the case with the
various detachments of Captain Bonneville's company, thus brought
together on Horse Creek. Here was the detachment of fifty men which
he had sent from Salmon River, in the preceding month of November, to
winter on Snake River. They had met with many crosses and losses in the
course of their spring hunt, not so much from Indians as from white men.
They had come in competition with rival trapping parties, particularly
one belonging to the Rocky Mountain Fur Company; and they had long
stories to relate of their manoeuvres to forestall or distress each
other. In fact, in these virulent and sordid competitions, the trappers
of each party were more intent upon injuring their rivals, than
benefitting themselves; breaking each other's traps, trampling and
tearing to pieces the beaver lodges, and doing every thing in their
power to mar the success of the hunt. We forbear to detail these pitiful
contentions.

The most lamentable tale of disasters, however, that Captain Bonneville
had to hear, was from a partisan, whom he had detached in the preceding
year, with twenty men, to hunt through the outskirts of the Crow
country, and on the tributary streams of the Yellowstone; whence he was
to proceed and join him in his winter quarters on Salmon River. This
partisan appeared at the rendezvous without his party, and a sorrowful
tale of disasters had he to relate. In hunting the Crow country, he fell
in with a village of that tribe; notorious rogues, jockeys, and horse
stealers, and errant scamperers of the mountains. These decoyed most of
his men to desert, and carry off horses, traps, and accoutrements. When
he attempted to retake the deserters, the Crow warriors ruffled up to
him and declared the deserters were their good friends, had determined
to remain among them, and should not be molested. The poor partisan,
therefore, was fain to leave his vagabonds among these birds of their
own feather, and being too weak in numbers to attempt the dangerous
pass across the mountains to meet Captain Bonneville