JOURNAL OF E. WILLARD SMITH 251
ert Campbell, James Bridger and Thomas Fitzpatrick. William L. and his brother, Milton G. soon rose to prominence and took charge of independent enterprises. William's partner in this undertaking was Vasquez, who seems to have been more active in personally conducting the expedition which Sublette had probably the larger share in fitting out.
Their post was located on the upper South Fork of the Platte. Its site was about fifty miles north of that of the pres- ent city of Denver.
In the immediate neighborhood there were three other fur trading forts. Lupton's was above and St. Vrain's and the other were below. All were within a day's journey of Long's Peak.
Colonel H. M. Chittenden seems to have had no data at hand bearing upon the operations in this vicinity, while writing his "American Fur Trade in the Far West." He is aware only of the bare fact of the existence of these posts.
The expedition which E. Willard Smith, the author of this journal, accompanied had probably proceeded up the Missouri River from St. Louis by boat to Independence. From that point it set out equipped, as the journal describes, following the Santa Fe Trail for some four hundred miles to the ford of the Arkansas, the Cimarron crossing; thence its route was along the mountain branch of the Santa Fe Trail, on the north bank of the Arkansas, to Bent's Fort. They of the Sublette and Vasquez party overtake and pass Lupton's company of a char- acter similar to their own and having a destination separated only four or five miles from theirs. But Lupton's oxen were not as fleet as Vasquez's mules.
Bent's Fort marked a turning point in their course. They had traveled westward some 530 miles from Independence. A ten days' march northward was still ahead of them to reach their fort on the South Fork. Bent's Fort which they were passing was so situated as to be in touch both with the Santa Fe trade and with that of the mountains. Chittenden speaks of this post as "the great cross roads station of the South- west. The north and south route between the Platte River
