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Spring. We then started for Laramie on another trapping expedition, before our departure we cached the Beaver we had on hand, some four hundred points. When we arrived on the South Fork of the Platte River two men of our party deserted, taking with them three of our best animals, we instructed their design? and ? sent myself and another man in pursuit. They had a day the [??]] and we could not overtake them, when we came to our old camp we discovered that the deserters had ? the Beaver + had taken it down the Arkansas in a canoe which we had made during the winter for the purpose of crossing the river, neither the men or the Beaver were ever heard of again. I presume they were killed by Indians. They deserved such a fate for their dishonesty. We recovered the stolen animals