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Show TRAILS TO CALIFORNIA then followed that stream, setting traps as they went. On the Salt, James Anderson and Cambridge Green had a dispute over trapping rights, Green feeling that Anderson had placed his traps in an area which Green had claimed. Green complained to Young about this, and Young, according to Dye, replied, "What makes you let him do it-if I could not prevent him in any other way, I would shoot him." Young's remark, spoken in levity, was taken seriously by Green, who promptly dispatched the hapless Anderson. Dye recalled that they also trapped for twelve days on the San Carlos River. This would have meant considerable backtracking and would have taken them well off their route. He probably meant the Verde, for Mexican trappers who were along described the route as following the Zufii River to the Salt and the Verde, and then to the Gila.46 When they reached the Colorado, thirteen men made the difficult crossing into California while the remainder trapped their way back to New Mexico. J. J. Warner heard that Young's beaver traps, "mostly new ones bought in New Mexico," were defective, allowing many beaver to escape. Dye docs not mention this problem, however.47 As planned, Young and David Jackson rendezvoused in California. J. J. Warner, who was in Jackson's employ, tells that Jackson had gone as far north as San Francisco to search for mules, but neither he nor Young were as successful as they had hoped. Instead of the fifteen hundred or two thousand mules they had planned on they had only six hundred mules and one hundred horses. Jackson could get the animals back to New Mexico without Young's assistance. Young went as far as the Colorado River to help Jackson make the crossing, then returned to the coast.48 When Jackson returned to New Mexico, apparently in July, 1832, it was discovered that he had brought more than mules and in the Southwest. See Camp, "Journal of a 'Crazy Man,' " CHSQ, Vol. XV, No. 2 (June, 1936), 105. 46 Dye, Recollections, 23-24. See the testimony of David E. Jackson in papers regarding the embargo of the furs of Ewing Young, July 12-July 25, 1832, MANM. 4 7 Dye, Recollections, 24-27; Warner, "Reminiscences," HSSC, Vol. VIII (1907-1908), 186. 4 8 Warner, "Reminiscences," HSCC, Vol. VIII (1907-1908), 179. 149 |
