At Wind River, on August 4, 1830, Smith, Jackson, and Sublette, having earned a deserved fortune from their labors, decided to retire from the mountain trade, and sold their interest to a group of their employees who had already distinguished themselves in the service—James Bridger, Thomas Fitzpatrick, Milton Sublette, Henry Fraeb, and Baptiste Gervais. The main trapper band, numbering over two hundred and including Meek, followed Bridger and Fitzpatrick northward to the Three Forks of the Missouri, thence south to Ogden’s Hole, a small valley in the Bear River Mountains. In the fall of 1830, John Work, heading the annual Snake River expedition of the Hudson’s Bay Company, got wind of the American invasion of his domain. Among other rumors was one that Fontenelle and his men “have been hunting on the Upper Snake. They were set upon by the Blackfeet on the Yellowstone River and 18 men killed.” In the spring of 1831, after wintering again at Powder River, Meek reports on the spring hunt: “Having once more visited the Yellowstone, they turned to the south again, crossing the mountains into Pierre’s Hole, on to Snake river; thence to Salt river; thence to Bear river; and thence to Green river to rendezvous.” Confirmation of this comes from Joseph Meek’s brother Stephen, who says that this year he trapped on the Yellowstone, Wind, and Musselshell Rivers, “going through Jackson’s Hole to the rendezvous on Popyoisa River.” From the Powder River encampment Fitzpatrick headed for St. Louis to round up a supply caravan. Running into his old companions Smith, Jackson, and Sublette en route to Santa Fe, he was persuaded to join them, being promised an outfit when they arrived. Thus he shared the delays and perils of that expedition in which Jedediah Smith was slain by a Comanche spear, and when he left Santa Fe, he was far behind schedule. Picking up young Kit Carson and other volunteers at Taos, he followed the east slope of the Rockies into eastern Wyoming country, sometime during September reaching the North Platte River at Laramie’s Fork. Here he met Fraeb, who had been sent to look for him while the others waited impatiently with parched tongues at Green River. Fitzpatrick returned to St. Louis for supplies, while Fraeb led the recruits westward, traveling via Green River and Jackson’s Hole to “winter quarters on the head of Salmon River.” Thus there was no real summer rendezvous in 1831.