GREEN RIVER CANYON.



robbers having domiciled themselves in an old fort at the
mouth of the Uintee. In order to avoid having a fight
with the renegades, whose white blood the trappers were
not anxious to spill, Walker made an effort to get the horses
off the island undiscovered. But while horses and men
were crossing the river on the ice, the ice sinking with
them until the water was knee-deep, the robbers discovered
the -escape of their booty, and charging on the trappers
tried to recover the horses. In this effort they were not
successful; while Walker made a masterly flank movement
and getting in Thompson's rear, ran the horses into the
fort, where he stationed his men, and succeeded in keep-.
ing the robbers on the outside. Thompson then com-
menced giving the horses away to a village of Utes in the
neighborhood of the fort, on condition that they should
assist in retaking them. On his side, Walker threatened
the Utes with dire vengeance if they dared interfere. The
Utes who had a wholesome fear not only of the trappers,
but of their foes the Snakes, declined to enter into the
quarrel. After a day of strategy, and of threats alterna-
ted with arguments, strengthened by a warlike display,
the trappers marched out of the fort before the faces of
the discomfitted thieves, taking their booty with them,
which was duly restored to the Snakes on their return to
Fort Crockett, and peace secured once more with that
people.
  Still times continued bad. The men not knowing what
else to do, went out in small parties in all directions seek-
ing adventures, which generally were not far to find. On-
one of these excursions Meek went with a party down the
canyon of Green River, on the ice. For nearly a hundred
miles they traveled down this awful canyon without find-
ing but one place where they could have come out; and
left it at last at the mouth of the Uintee.



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