For five years after 1S15 the trappers met in May of each year, and when conditions were favorable, the peltries were loaded on the bullboats, and Laramie with a party would convey them down the river. Another party would take horses to a point about four hundred miles below to assist their return. Keelboats plying on the Missouri river, would take Laramie "and his cargo from the mouth of the Platte to St. Louis and return, and occasionally keelboats could ascend the Platte as far as Grand Island -- then an unnamed island.

Ordinarily, however, the party were compelled to use its bullboats up the Platte to the meeting place. Sometimes traders would be found at the island rendezvous, who would take all their pelts, furnish them with supplies and permit them to return. Pack horses were invariably used on this return through western Nebraska.

Here the supplies were distributed by the just hand of Laramie, as had been ordered and was required by each trapper or company of trappers and all would then take to the prairies or mountains, each announcing the portion of the wild in which he proposed to operate for the coming year.

Thus it transpired that from 1815 onward, there were troops of horse, and fleets of batteaux frequently traversing the great valley of the North Platte.

There was always plenty of driftwood for their small needs, as the trips were made quickly. The boats traveled about seventyfive miles per day, and the horses about thirty, so that five or six days would take the boat to the island rendezvous, and twelve or fifteen would bring the horses back to Laramie's fork.