Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 11.djvu/271

Peter Skene Ogden, Fur Trader. 249 lished by Mr. Mackenzie in 1819, arrived at Fort Walla Walla on Nov. 9th ; there Chief Factor John McLoughlin was im- patiently waiting for him and at once (Nov. 21st) started him off again for another year's exploration and trade. But it is not the purpose of this narrative to follow closely these five years of trade and exploration and exposure and danger among the thieving Snakes (how he did despise them !) and the treacherous Blackfeet and wandering Piegans, not to mention the various other tribes. The Snake Country stretched from the Three Tetons on the east to the Cascades and Sierras on the west, and hardly a tributary stream in that whole stretch of country was overlooked by this indefatigable trader. Much of the time was spent in the eastern portion, near the Port Neuf river (so named after one of his men) which Ogden declared the best beaver country on earth, but all the winter of 1825-6 he was exploring the rugged coun- try of eastern Oregon around the head of the John Day river and from there crossed to the Snake by way of Burnt river, and nearly starved to death reaching there ; and in the fall of 1826 he led his trappers to Malheur and Harney lakes and then ascended the Des Chutes and crossed the height of land to the waters of what he called the Clamitte, and further on to a river he called the Sasty, after the Indians found there, with a high snow peak visible to the westward to which he gave the same name; and toward spring turned to the northeast across the plains of southern Oregon to the head waters of the Malheur and followed that to the Snake ; this time additional discomfort was the presence of so much salt or alkali water. The fall of 1828 he penetrated into the regions of what he called Unknown River and the trappers afterward called Ogden's river, but known to us as the Hum- boldt, and from there struck eastward to the shores of Great Salt Lake which he skirted around to the northward, con- tributing more than the usual number of horses to the kettle for subsistence, and finding Indians who ran from him and evidently had never seen a white man before. He returned