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Show 240 VALLEY OF THE MUDDY. flight, the residue escaping only by abandoning their horses and hiding in the bushes. Intelligence of this onslaught reached Major Bridger, then occupied in erecting a trading- post on Green River; he sent Frappe advice to abandon his post at once, for fear of worse consequences. The advice, however, was neglected, when, about ten days after, as his party was on their way to join his N partner, they were again suddenly attacked by another large party of the savage allies. He had but forty men; but they instantly " for ted" in the corral attached to the trading- post, and stood on their defence. The assault lasted from noon until sundown, the Indians charging the pickets several times with great bravery; but they were finally repulsed with the loss of forty men. Frappe himself was killed, with seven or eight of his people. I give this as a sample of the perilous adventures in which these rude and daring men, almost as wild as their savage foes, were engaged, as things of course, and which they related around their camp- fires with a relish quite professional. The only vegetation at this camp was a few scattering clumps of small willows and some black currant- bushes: the supply of grass was scanty. Muddy Creek runs between perpendicular cut clay- banks, forty feet apart; the water at the present stage being only four feet wide and four inches deep. Day's travel, very direct as to course, twenty and a- half miles. Lat. 41° 27' 06". l; long. 107° 52' 41". Thursday, September 19.- Slight frost in the night. Ther. at sunrise, 35°. The night passed without alarm; and, crossing the creek, we continued up its left bank, and soon reached a point where it made a long cation through the hills. The ground was rough and filled with gullies made by the rush of the spring freshets. The soil was loose and sandy, and the waters had cut numerous deep and narrow channels across the valley, whose perpendicular banks obliged us to pass along the base of the bluffs, in order to head, and thus avoid them. The creek had to be crossed some six or eight times, and, upon the whole, this has been the roughest and most difficult part of the route. Before noon we passed a spot where a party of fourteen fur- traders, under Mr. Vasquez, had « forted" and fought forty Ogallalah Sioux for four hours, successfully defending themselves and repulsing the Indians. One of our men, a half- breed hunter, had himself been in the fight, and pointed out to me the localities with the most minute particularity of bloody detail. |