A SUCCESSFUL HUNT.



  "I reckon you took the wrong end of it, that time,
Milton! "
  "I'll be     , Meek, if I didn't think I was twenty
feet up that tree when you shot; " answered the frightened
Booshway; and from that time the men never tired of
alluding to Milton's manner .of climbing a tree.



               THE WRONG END OF THE TREE.
  These were some of the mirthful incidents which gave
occasion for a gayety which had to be substituted for hap-
piness, in the checkered life of the trapper; and there
were like to be many such, where there were two hun-
dred men, each almost daily in the way of adventures by
flood or field.
  On the change in the management of the Company
which occurred at the rendezvous this year, three of the
new partners, Fitzpatrick, Sublette, and Bridger, conducted
a large party, numbering over two hundred, from the Wind
River to the Yellowstone; crossing thence to Smith's River,
the Falls of the Missouri, three forks of the Missouri, and
to the Big Blackfoot River. The hunt proved very suc-
cessful; beaver were plentiful; and the Blackfeet shy of
so large a traveling party. Although so long in their
country, there were only four men killed out of the whole
company during this autumn.



94