faithful to his new ones.

The party reached St. Charles in the afternoon, but the harpies of the
law looked in vain for their expected prey. The boats resumed their
course on the following morning, and had not proceeded far when Pierre
Dorion made his appearance on the shore. He was gladly taken on board,
but he came without his squaw. They had quarreled in the night; Pierre
had administered the Indian discipline of the cudgel, whereupon she had
taken to the woods, with their children and all their worldly goods.
Pierre evidently was deeply grieved and disconcerted at the loss of his
wife and his knapsack, whereupon Mr. Hunt despatched one of the
Canadian voyageurs in search of the fugitive; and the whole party,
after proceeding a few miles further, encamped on an island to wait
his return. The Canadian rejoined the party, but without the squaw; and
Pierre Dorion passed a solitary and anxious night, bitterly regretting
his indiscretion in having exercised his conjugal authority so near
home. Before daybreak, however, a well-known voice reached his ears from
the opposite shore. It was his repentant spouse, who had been wandering
the woods all night in quest of the party, and had at length descried it
by its fires. A boat was despatched for her, the interesting family
was once more united, and Mr. Hunt now flattered himself that his
perplexities with Pierre Dorion were at an end.

Bad weather, very heavy rains, and an unusually early rise in the
Missouri, rendered the ascent of the river toilsome, slow, and
dangerous. The rise of the Missouri does not generally take place until
the month of May or June: the present swelling of the river must have
been caused by a freshet in some of its more southern branches. It could
not have been the great annual flood, as the higher branches must still
have been ice-bound.

And here we cannot but pause, to notice the admirable arrangement of
nature, by which the annual swellings of the various great rivers which
empty themselves into the Mississippi, have been made to precede each
other at considerable intervals. Thus, the flood of the Red River
precedes that of the Arkansas by a month. The Arkansas, also, rising in
a much more southern latitude than the Missouri, takes the lead of it
in its annual excess, and its superabundant waters are disgorged and
disposed of long before the breaking up of the icy barriers of the
north; otherwise, did all these mighty streams rise simultaneous