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due to the great wealth of Anglo civilization (Farnham 1841). The early explorers generally traveled with an old trapper acting as a guide. They were often amazed at the ability of a mountain man to tell how many and what group of Indians had passed by from moccasin prints in the earth (ibid.). The various tribes of the region warred extensively and enthusiastically with each other and presented a threat to the first explorers. John C. Fremont, in writing about the Little Snake River Valley says, “The country we are now entering is constantly infested by war parties of the Sioux and other Indians, and is considered among the most dangerous war grounds in the Rocky Mountains; parties of whites having been repeatedly defeated on this river “ (Fremont 1970). He encountered evidence of numerous tribes, among them Ute, Shoshone, Crow, Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapahoe, and Gros Ventres (also known as Minataree or Hidatsa). A small howitzer served Fremont's party as silent protection against the Indians; apparently keeping it prominently displayed was sufficient to dissuade them from hostile actions (Fremont 1887:383-410). E. Willard Smith saw Shoshone and Sioux Indians and writes of the danger they posed to his party. He left Brown's Park in the dead of winter due to the rumor of impending Indian trouble. On the return, he encountered a band of Ute: “On 26th Jan we met a party of 20 Eutaw Indians who had been out hunting buffalos. These Indians are the best marksmen in the mountains and armed with good rifles” (Smith 1955:180). The Farnham party, while never engaged in a fight, had been fearful of Indian trouble since entering South Park. Farnham stated that Utaws [sic], Cheyenne, Shoshone, Arapahoe, Blackfeet, Crow, and Sioux all hunted and fought in South Park. Farnham's party was careful to keep to the timbered ridges and out of sight as best they could after encountering plenty of fresh sign in South Park and the Gore Range. He was not without an appreciation for their ancestral spirits -- “How wild and beautiful the past as it comes up fledged with the rich plumage of the imagination” (Farnham 1841). Farnham's fears were not relieved when his party met a group of French trappers who'd been attacked by Sioux on the way from Brown's Park. Farnham himself, however, reached the park without incident, relieved to be with the traders and friendly Shoshone after many a nervous night in hostile country (ibid.). Indian fights were not common in the trapping era, and although the Ute were feared by many of the early explorers, surviving accounts which mention specific hostile bands do not mention fights with the Ute in northwestern Colorado. Accounts of the fight in which Pegleg Smith (see page 27) was wounded and lost his leg fail to mention what band of Indians perpetrated the deed, but they were in the far northern part of Colorado, somewhere in the Hahn's Peak region, an area not generally thought of as Ute country (History of Routt National Forest [H.R.N.F.] 1975). A notable fight between Indians and trappers occurred in 1841. Henry Fraeb, some trappers, and Shoshone (Snake) allies met a large party of Arapahoe, Cheyenne, and Sioux Indians, who promptly attacked the trappers. Jim Baker, mountain man and trapper guide who was in the battle, said there were about 500 Indians armed with some rifles and bows and arrows. The trappers and Snake allies sent their squaws to a mountain south of the 36