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party as silent protection against the Indians; apparently keeping it prominently <br />• displayed was sufficient to dissuade the Indians from possible hostile actions. <br /> Travel through the territory was certainly more interesting •.vhen the Indians <br /> moved freely through the area. The early trappers met the danger as best they <br /> could, often marrying Indian women, hoping for some measure of security in that <br /> arrangement. Apparently Shoshoni and Crow women were much sought after by the <br /> trappers, though Indian groups varied a great deal in the kinds of arrangements <br /> required to secure abride -- from simple purchase to the necessity for adoption into <br /> the culture. Shoshoni women could be purchased with ponies and trade goods, and <br /> trappers often had their pick of the women due to The great wealth of Anglo <br /> civilization (Farnham 1841). The early explorers generally traveled with an old <br /> trapper acting as guide. They were often amazed at the ability of a mountain man <br /> to tell how many and what group of Indians had passed by from moccasin prints in <br /> the earth (ibid.). <br /> E. Willard Smith saw Shoshoni and Sioux Indians and writes of the danger they <br /> posed to his party. He left Brown's Park in the dead of winter due to the rumor <br /> of impending Indian trouble. On the return, he encountered a band of Ute: "On 26th <br /> Jan we met a party of 20 Eutaw Indians who had been out hunting buffalos. These <br />• Indians are the best marksmen in the mountains and armed with good rifles" (Smith <br /> 1955:180). <br /> The Farnham party, while never engaged in a fight, had been fearful of Indian <br /> trouble since entering South Park. Farnham stated that Eutaws [sic], Cheyenne, <br /> Shoshoni, Arapaho, Blackfeet, Crow, and Sioux all hunted and fought in South Park. <br /> Farnham's party was careful to keep to the timbered ridges and out of sight as best <br /> they could after encountering plenty of fresh sign in South Park and the Gore P,ange. <br /> He was not without on appreciation for their ancestral spirits -- "How wild and <br /> beautiful the past as it comes up fledged with the rich plumage of the imagination" <br /> (Farnham 1841). Farnham's fears were not relieved when his party met a group of <br /> French trappers who'd been attacked by Sioux on the way from Brown's Park. <br /> Farnham himself, however, reached the park avithout incident, relieved to be with the <br /> traders and friendly Shoshoni after many a nervous night in hostile country (ibid.). <br /> Indian fights were not common in the trapping era, and although the Ute were <br /> feared by many of the early explorers, surviving accounts which mention specific <br /> hostile bands do not mention fights with Ute in northwestern Colorado. Accounts of <br />. the fight in which Pegleg Smith was wounded and lost his leg foil to mention what <br /> band of Indians perpetrated the deed, but they were in the far northern part of <br />2.8-10 <br />