The Captain presently decided to proceed to the head of Salmon River to pitch his winter camp. Here among the friendly Nez Perces he and his followers passed a pleasant season. Parties were sent in various directions, and in the spring Bonneville went out on the plains of Snake River. On the 13th of July, 1833, he was back again in Green River Valley, and here he met the bands of trappers he had sent out the previous autumn. Their success had been small. The valley was lively with the returning trappers, not only of Bonneville, but of the American Fur Company and the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, both having rendezvous three or four miles from Bonneville. The intercourse of the various camps was friendly and agreeable and the valley was for two or three months, during the off season of trapping, a very gay place. There was no danger of a hostile tribe attacking so large a body of whites, hence life at the time of the rendezvous was free from this fear. Another unusual and singular one came up however. A mad wolf entered one of the camps and bit several, some of whom died of hydrophobia. Mad wolves are rare, but there seems to be no doubt of their occurrence. In recent years the young son of a man in southern Utah, while camping out with another boy, was bitten in the night by one of these animals, and shortly afterwards died in great agony. Wyeth had travelled down Snake River, across the Blue Mountains, and then down the Columbia to Fort Vancouver, making the first continuous trip on record from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and the record trip was all that he had to show for his investment and his exertions. Then he turned round, heading once more for Boston, to form a company for the prosecution of the salmon fishing. He was a man of elastic hopes, and prepared to go again to the Pacific. Bonneville, meanwhile, seemed not to notice that it was about time for him either to return to his post or to apply for an extension of his leave. He ignored the situation entirely. His packs of furs were sent east, but the Captain sent no word to headquarters, and on his own responsibility remained a trapper in the Wilderness. [Illustration] FOOTNOTES: [91] There are several biographies of Carson. [92] Burdette's _Life of Kit Carson_. [93] _Commerce of the Prairies._ [94] Gregg, _Commerce of the Prairies_. [95] _Reminiscences of a Ranger._ [96] _History of the American Fur Trade_—an admirable work. He criticises Bancroft for speaking of Irving's book as _The Adventures of Captain Bonneville_, but this was the title of the edition of 1849. [Illustration] CHAPTER XV