Fremont then decided to go up the Cache la Poudre Valley and cross the Divide to the Laramie River. He describes the buttes he saw on this trip "with their sharp points and green colors"; the same so clearly defined now, on the automobile road beyond Dale Creek, between Fort Collins and Laramie City, one of the most picturesque scenes in the whole State of Colorado. He followed the Laramie River down to the present line of the Union Pacific Railroad, then west to the North Platte River and beyond, where, getting tangled up in the hills, he finally recognized the Sweetwater Mountains to the north to which he proceeded; thence to the familiar Oregon Trail which he followed to Salt Lake and on to California. On his return he entered Colorado near the mouth of Green River, went northeast and encountered some branch of the White River, possibly the Snake River, which he followed over the Divide to the North Platte River, and thence up into North Park. While in Middle Park, a number of squaws came to his camp greatly excited and made known the fact that nearby a great battle was in progress between two Indian tribes, and they wanted him to go with his party to help their side. He declined and hurriedly departed. He passed over into the Cripple Creek country, where after a few days of aimless traveling he descended a branch of the Arkansas River to Pueblo. Fremont's memoirs are very rambling, and contain such a mass of undigested material that it requires much reading and study to follow him in his wanderings through Colorado. The streams, mountains and localities had no names, and he gave them none. We can only trace his journeyings by his camping places where he gives his latitudes and longitudes, and which is only incidentally given and not in its regular order. He ascertained latitude and longitude by the use of a scientific instrument in its application to the sun, moon and fixed stars, as the Indians often found their own locations by the study of these same heavenly bodies, from centuries of observation without an instrument, the knowledge being passed down from father to son, generation after generation. On one of his trips, as he came in sight of Bent's Fort, the three cannon mounted on its parapets, belched forth a greeting that sounded sweet to the ears of the trained soldier, as the reverberating music of the booming of the guns rolled down the Valley of the Arkansas to meet him.