The year following his marriage, Frémont applied to the Secretary of War for permission to explore the far West and penetrate the Rockies. The plan was supported by Benton, who believed that by making surveys the government would be giving at least a semblance of protection to its Western possessions. Congress gave its sanction, and in May, 1842, with a handful of venturesome spirits gathered on the Missouri frontier, Frémont went forth to the exploration of the southern pass. It was the first of numerous similar expeditions, his scientific reports of which--going into astronomy, botany, mineralogy, geology, and geography--were translated into many tongues, and gave their author world-wide fame. During his absences, which were always of uncertain duration, his wife sometimes remained in her parents' home. Her father sent for her one morning, when she had been married about a year, and, pointing out her old place at his library table, he said, "I want you to resume your place there; you are too young to fritter away your life without some useful pursuit." So she dropped back quite naturally into her old habits of study, as if her honeymoon days had been but another form of vacation. She frequently accompanied Frémont, however, as far as St. Louis, waiting there for his return, or going out again to meet him after a fixed time. He was once eight months overdue, during which period of awful silence and suspense she had a supper-table set for him every night with all the comforts and luxuries of that civilization to which he had been so long a stranger. He came at length, in the dead of the night, and, rather than disturb a household, he went to a hotel, and for the first time in eighteen months slept in a bed. With whatever misgivings she may have seen him set out for a field where he would encounter certainly many dangers, and possibly even death, she never, even when the opportunity came, of which many a weaker woman would have availed herself, endeavored to withhold him from his purpose. He would sometimes, after having covered many miles of his route, come back to her for another good-by, overtaking his party again by hard riding or pressing forward while they were resting. In the summer of 1843, while he was still on the frontier gathering together men and animals for his second expedition, his recall to Washington was ordered, to explain there why, making a scientific expedition under the protection of the government, he had armed his men with the howitzer. The order, however, never reached him, for he had already left St. Louis, where it fell into the hands of his wife. Though she still labored under the depression of their recent parting, she yet, with all the spirit which the emergency demanded, sent him a swift messenger, bidding him hurry off and rest and fatten his animals at Bent's Ford, stating that there was sufficient reason for the haste which could not then be given.