During the decade of the 1840's, accounts of the presence of Shoshone beyond the Continental Divide are found with increasing frequency. In 1842 W. T. Hamilton, while on the Little Wind River, noted that the trappers and the Shoshone were in continual jeopardy in this region because of "Blackfeet, Bloods, Piegans and Crows" (Hamilton, 1905, p. 52). Although his party was attacked by a Blackfoot group at this time, they sighted a Shoshone party shortly thereafter (p. 61) which was under the leadership of Chief Washakie (pp. 63-64). Other Shoshone joined this group, claiming that they had fought with Pend Oreille Indians near the Owl Creek Mountains on the north side of the Wind River Valley (p. 69). (The identification of this group may well have been erroneous in view of the northerly locale of the Pend Oreille.) The Shoshone met by Hamilton later gathered at Bull Lake to prepare an attack against the Blackfoot on the Big Wind River (p. 71); twenty "Piegans" were later encountered in the Owl Creek Range (p. 80). These events apparently transpired in the late spring or early summer of 1842, for summer found Washakie's people at Fort Bridger (p. 92), and later at Brown's Hole on the Green River in northwestern Colorado where a "few Ute and Navajos came up on their annual visit with the Shoshone, to trade and to race horses." The Shoshone left for their fall trapping in September (p. 97), but some were there in winter camp when Hamilton's party returned to Brown's Hole to winter (p. 118). Hamilton's later travels took him on a buffalo hunt into the Big Horn Basin with Washakie in October, 1843 (p. 182). At "Stinking Water" (Shoshone River) the party encountered Crow Indians on their way to visit the Shoshone (p. 183). The buffalo-hunting group returned to the Green River in November for the winter (p. 186). At this time Hamilton noted that Washakie claimed the Big Horn country as far as the Yellowstone River, but that the Crow, Flathead, and Nez Perce hunted upon it and it was regarded as neutral hunting ground by other tribes (p. 187). October, 1848, again found Hamilton in the Big Horn country, where he met a party of Shoshone in the Big Horn Mountains (p. 197). The group was in pursuit of a Cheyenne war party that had stolen horses from them; the offenders were overtaken on the North Platte River and the horses were recovered (p. 198). Hamilton was informed that Washakie was then on Greybull Creek, but planned to move to the Shoshone River (p. 199). Further information on the activities of the Shoshone east of the Continental Divide comes from Bryant, who, on July 14, 1846, sighted near Green River (Bryant, 1885, p. 136):