efore, that could be of
service to him in the further prosecution of his project; collected
all the information within his reach, and then set off, accompanied by
merely two men, on his return journey across the continent. He had got
thus far "by hook and by crook," a mode in which a New England man can
make his way all over the world, and through all kinds of difficulties,
and was now bound for Boston; in full confidence of being able to form a
company for the salmon fishery and fur trade of the Columbia.

The party of Mr. Campbell had met with a disaster in the course of
their route from the Sweet Water. Three or four of the men, who were
reconnoitering the country in advance of the main body, were visited one
night in their camp, by fifteen or twenty Shoshonies. Considering this
tribe as perfectly friendly, they received them in the most cordial and
confiding manner. In the course of the night, the man on guard near the
horses fell sound asleep; upon which a Shoshonie shot him in the head,
and nearly killed him. The savages then made off with the horses,
leaving the rest of the party to find their way to the main body on
foot.

The rival companies of Captain Bonneville and Mr. Campbell, thus
fortuitously brought together, now prosecuted their journey in great
good fellowship; forming a joint camp of about a hundred men. The
captain, however, began to entertain doubts that Fitzpatrick and his
trappers, who kept profound silence as to their future movements,
intended to hunt the same grounds which he had selected for his autumnal
campaign; which lay to the west of the Horn River, on its tributary
streams. In the course of his march, therefore, he secretly detached
a small party of trappers, to make their way to those hunting grounds,
while he continued on with the main body; appointing a rendezvous, at
the next full moon, about the 28th of August, at a place called the
Medicine Lodge.

On reaching the second chain, called the Bighorn Mountains, where
the river forced its impetuous way through a precipitous defile, with
cascades and rapids, the travellers were obliged to leave its banks,
and traverse the mountains by a rugged and frightful route, emphatically
called the "Bad Pass." Descending the opposite side, they again made for
the river banks; and about the middle of August, reached the point below
the rapids where the river becomes navigable for boats. Here Captain
Bonneville detached a second party of trappers,