Great Salt Lake was supposed to be a very strange and wonderful lake, the islands of which were covered with woods and flowers, through which roamed all kinds of game, and whose waters were sucked down in a great awe-inspiring whirlpool into an underground passage under the mountains and valleys to the distant sea.  Another myth, or rather pair of myths, in which geographers placed sufficient faith to give a place on the maps of the time, was the great Buenaventura River, and that semi-tropical Mary’s Lake, the waters from which found their way through the Sierra Nevadas to San Francisco Bay.  Mary’s Lake was supposed to be a body of water such as a traveler dreams about, whose clear waters were bordered by meadows ever green, a place on whose shores he could pitch his tent and cast aside all thought or care of the morrow.  Fremont counted on this lake as a place where he could recuperate and make ready for a final dash eastward across the unknown country to the Rocky Mountains and thence home to the Mississippi River.  Contrast these anticipations with the hardships and fears he encountered while groping his way through the Black Rock Desert, north of Pyramid Lake.

But Fremont was a good leader followed by courageous men, and disappointments did not make weaklings of either him or his men.  His party, on leaving Missouri, consisted of thirty-nine men—­Creoles, Canadian-Frenchmen, Americans, a German or two, a free negro and two Indians.  Charles Preuss was Fremont’s assistant in topography, and it is likely that he made his sketches, several of which were published in the original report.  Another member of the party, and one who joined it in the Rocky Mountains and is of special interest to us, was Christopher Carson, commonly known as “Kit” Carson.  Fremont speaks of him in very friendly and flattering terms.  At the time of the meeting with Carson, he says:  “I had here the satisfaction to meet our good buffalo hunter of 1842, Christopher Carson, whose services I considered myself fortunate to secure again.”  On another occasion, when Carson had successfully performed a responsible errand, he says:  “Reaching St. Vrain’s Fort ... we found ... my true and reliable friend, Kit Carson.”  Fremont left Kansas City, Mo., May 29, 1843.

His general route was along the old “Oregon Trail,” then the new “Oregon Trail,” but at many places his route was different.  He followed up the Kansas River instead of the Platte.  But he crossed the Rocky Mountains over the South Pass, which is that of the Union Pacific Railroad, and was common to the Oregon Trail and the emigrant road to California.  During nearly the whole journey to Oregon Fremont divided his party.  One part he placed in charge of Fitzpatrick.  This consisted of the carts with the bulk of the supplies and about half of the men.  The other part consisted of a mounted party with packhorses and the howitzer.  Fremont, of course, took charge of the latter