When the event occurred Bauman was still a young man, and was trapping
with a partner among the mountains dividing the forks of the Salmon from
the head of Wisdom River. Not having had much luck, he and his partner
determined to go up into a particularly wild and lonely pass through
which ran a small stream said to contain many beaver. The pass had
an evil reputation because the year before a solitary hunter who
had wandered into it was there slain, seemingly by a wild beast, the
half-eaten remains being afterwards found by some mining prospectors who
had passed his camp only the night before.
The memory of this event, however, weighed very lightly with the two
trappers, who were as adventurous and hardy as others of their kind.
They took their two lean mountain ponies to the foot of the pass, where
they left them in an open beaver meadow, the rocky timber-clad ground
being from thence onwards impracticable for horses. They then struck out
on foot through the vast, gloomy forest, and in about four hours reached
a little open glade where they concluded to camp, as signs of game were
plenty.
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