orn
Mountain. In company with Campbell's convoy was a trapping party of the
Rocky Mountain Company, headed by Fitzpatrick; who, after Campbell's
embarkation on the Bighorn, was to take charge of all the horses,
and proceed on a trapping campaign. There were, moreover, two chance
companions in the rival camp. One was Captain Stewart, of the British
army, a gentleman of noble connections, who was amusing himself by a
wandering tour in the Far West; in the course of which, he had lived
in hunter's style; accompanying various bands of traders, trappers, and
Indians; and manifesting that relish for the wilderness that belongs to
men of game spirit.

The other casual inmate of Mr. Campbell's camp was Mr. Nathaniel Wyeth;
the self-same leader of the band of New England salmon fishers, with
whom we parted company in the valley of Pierre's Hole, after the battle
with the Blackfeet. A few days after that affair, he again set out
from the rendezvous in company with Milton Sublette and his brigade of
trappers. On his march, he visited the battle ground, and penetrated to
the deserted fort of the Blackfeet in the midst of the wood. It was a
dismal scene. The fort was strewed with the mouldering bodies of the
slain; while vultures soared aloft, or sat brooding on the trees around;
and Indian dogs howled about the place, as if bewailing the death
of their masters. Wyeth travelled for a considerable distance to the
southwest, in company with Milton Sublette, when they separated; and the
former, with eleven men, the remnant of his band, pushed on for Snake
River; kept down the course of that eventful stream; traversed the Blue
Mountains, trapping beaver occasionally by the way, and finally, after
hardships of all kinds, arrived, on the 29th of October, at Vancouver,
on the Columbia, the main factory of the Hudson's Bay Company.

He experienced hospitable treatment at the hands of the agents of that
company; but his men, heartily tired of wandering in the wilderness, or
tempted by other prospects, refused, for the most part, to continue
any longer in his service. Some set off for the Sandwich Islands; some
entered into other employ. Wyeth found, too, that a great part of the
goods he had brought with him were unfitted for the Indian trade; in a
word, his expedition, undertaken entirely on his own resources, proved a
failure. He lost everything invested in it, but his hopes. These were as
strong as ever. He took note of every thing, ther