When the event occurred, Bauman was still a young man, and wastrapping with a partner among the mountains dividing the forks ofSalmon from the head of Wisdom River. Not having had much luck he andhis partner determined to go up into a particularly wild and lonelypass through which ran a small stream said to contain many Beaver. Thepass had an evil reputation, because the year before a solitary hunterwho had wandered into it was there slain, seemingly by a wild beast,the half-eaten remains being afterwards found by some miningprospectors who had passed his camp only the night before.