The fur trader William Sublette departed for a rendezvous scheduled to occur that summer at Pierre’s Hole, a valley in the Grand Teton Mountains. Sublette arrived at the rendezvous point in June and he successfully traded his supplies for furs and enjoyed a reunion with his brother Milton. As the rendezvous broke up on July 17, Sublette’s brother left, leading a party of trappers toward the Snake River. They had gone seven miles when they encountered a band of Gros Ventres Indians. Foolishly, one of the trappers shot a Gros Ventres chief, and a battle erupted.
Alerted by a messenger, Sublette and about 200 other trappers soon arrived and joined the battle. Recognizing that the trappers outnumbered the Gros Ventres by about seven to one, Sublette decided the mountain men should attack. The Gros Ventres, however, were well entrenched and were tenacious fighters. By nightfall, they had killed 32 of the trappers and lost 26 of their own men. Sublette was wounded, though not seriously, and during the night, he and the other surviving trappers retreated. When they returned the next day, the Gros Ventres were gone.
If you like this particular era in the Old West, why not try the Wilderness (book series) is the generational saga of a mountain man and his Shoshone wife by American author David Robbins. The series has run for twenty years, making it one of the longest contemporary series written by a single author. We publish both Giant editions and our own Double Editions.
