On April 24th rounds about 1830 or 31st I reckon. A full-fledged trappin party left the city of St. Louie. This here party was backed by the company of Gant and Blackwell. The party headed west and by June had killed and et the last of the beefers that they had driven with em. From then until the middle of July their fare consisted of small fish, mussels, wolves, bobcats and once in a while a stray antelope. They also et two of their pack horses during that time.

Finally two elk were bagged and the men had full bellies for the first time in three weeks. In the latter part of July they sighted their first buffalo. There were two large bulls grazing about half a mile from their camp. Now these here eastern fellow thought theses were just two big ole hairy cows. Four or five of them mounted up to herd them in for the pot. During the melee that followed one man fell off his horse and broke his arm, To make matters worse the buffalos got clean away.

By the end of August they were at the junction of the Platt and Laramie rivers, here the party divided into three groups of bouts 15 to 20 men each for the fall hunt. Two men from Zena Lenord’s group were about to have their first encounter with ole Ephrim. For those of you greenhorns who ain’t got no learning ‘ole Ephrim’ is a grizzly bear. Well pilgrim whilst they was a settin their traps ole emphriam decided that these two legged critters might make a nice snack afore lunch. Totally confused by this big ole hairy thing the men grabbed each others rifles by mistake. The only real problem was that one rifle was a double-triggered rifle and the other was a single-trigger. The man who owned the single trigger grabbed the double trigger, didn’t set the trigger and couldn’t get it to fire and was forced to use it like a club on the bear. The bear then turned its attention to the man with the single-triggered rifle. He managed to fire the gun whilst a trin to set the trigger and he too was forced to try and club the beast. I reckon ole emphirm finally gave up in disgust and ambled off, all they got for their efforts was a torn coat sleeve and one bite on the hand.

In November they set up camp in an area of abundant game and a large grove of cottonwoods to feed the horses. Around the first part of December they made the discovery that the cottonwoods were not the sweet barked type that the horses could eat. By January most of the horses had starved to death. The group then decided to head for Santa Fe and trade for more horses. Four of the trappers were to remain behind and care for the two remaining mules and to guard the merchandise. Each man carried his bedding, rifle and nine beaver hides for trading.

On January 29th, the Santa Fe group was snowbound and eating roasted beaver hides. At this point they made snowshoes. Lucky some of the men were wearing pants which were reinforced with deer skin. Those were converted to thongs as well as a couple of the hide greatcoats the men were wearing. The snowshoes didn’t pan out too well and the first day they only made three miles. Part of the reason was they had nothing to eat for nine days except beaver hides. They finally came across a lone buffalo. After much foul-ups they finally had fresh meat. After a full feed the party decided that they didn’t want to go Santa Fe anyway. So they headed back to the winter camp where they found the two mules and four men no worse for the wear.

The men remained in winter camp until about mid March when the ice went out. They then headed for the area where the spring hunt was to be held. Once they arrived they soon collected a great number of pelts. They decided to erect a wigwam to store their goods. Around April some Indians came across their camp and duly relived them of everything. Upon their return to the camp the men decided in true woodsman style to chastise the thieves.

The Indians’ camp was soon discovered, but in sneaking up on them the trappers were in turn discovered. The command was given to fire a volley, at which time over 200 Indian jumped up. This was a little more than our brave band had counted on. Never the less they formed up and were determined to give a good account for their lives. After about an hour the Indians were fed up with them and allowed the party to escape.

By the end of May our group had arrived at the spot where the other groups had arrived to wait for resupplies. After feasting and swapping tales of adventure they learned from a passing wagon train from the Rocky Mountain that Gant and Blackwell had gone broke.

Well this pretty well covers Zenas Lenord’s first year in the mountains. I don’t know if everything that happened to him happened to everyone else. But it gives you a pretty good idea about the seasoning process of the mountain man.

Life as we live it is our seasoning process, Each and every event that we experience gain us a little bit more of that seasoning...