And the southern tribes, hungry and hostile, were meeting them a) tin- river, and chasing them over the hills to the south. On the morning of October Sth, a large herd was espied in the valley to the westward, and the hunters experienced no difficult) in crossing the river, as it was at low water stage. Several fat buffalo were slaughtered in what later became known as Mitchell valley. The robes and choicest cuts of the meat, and the tallow were saved, and the balance left to the wolves.

The hard life of the trapper would indeed have been mure serious had it not been for the buffalo, They furnished much of the subsistence required, and thereby the long journeys through the prairie country to the mountain- was quite as profitable to the trapping fraternity as the time spent in the shadows of the mountains.

Two days later the party passed the point of rocks west of Morrill.' and on the 13th crossed the Platte river above the mouth of

the Laramie. By October 15th the party was well out of the part of the country of which our story tells.

On reaching the Sweetwater, Pilcher had his horses stolen. He cached his supplies and went through the South Pass light. A number of his men, having arrived in the mountains, deserted, and no doubt some of them were with LeClerc the following year, when Hiram Scott was left to die.

Pilcher had one of the most wonderful trips ever made in the mountains, going with only one companion for many hundreds of miles. He returned to St. Louis in June, 1830, and after the death of General Clarke in 1838, he became Superintendent of Indian affairs, which position he held for nine years. It was under his regime that Andrew Drips became Indian Agent at Fort Laramie at a later date, much to the advantage of the American Fur Company, then operating a trading post at that point.