he hill tops, while about fifty were hunting in the prairie. Their
excursions are brief and hurried; as soon as they have collected and
jerked sufficient buffalo meat for winter provisions, they pack their
horses, abandon the dangerous hunting grounds, and hasten back to the
mountains, happy if they have not the terrible Blackfeet rattling after
them.

Such a confederate band of Shoshonies and Flatheads was the one met
by our travellers. It was bound on a visit to the Arrapahoes, a tribe
inhabiting the banks of the Nebraska. They were armed to the best of
their scanty means, and some of the Shoshonies had bucklers of buffalo
hide, adorned with feathers and leathern fringes, and which have a
charmed virtue in their eyes, from having been prepared, with mystic
ceremonies, by their conjurers.

In company with this wandering band our travellers proceeded all day.
In the evening they encamped near to each other in a defile of the
mountains, on the borders of a stream running north, and falling into
Bighorn River. In the vicinity of the camp, they found gooseberries,
strawberries, and currants in great abundance. The defile bore traces of
having been a thoroughfare for countless herds of buffaloes, though not
one was to be seen. The hunters succeeded in killing an elk and several
black-tailed deer.

They were now in the bosom of the second Bighorn ridge, with another
lofty and snow-crowned mountain full in view to the west. Fifteen miles
of western course brought them, on the following day, down into an
intervening plain, well stocked with buffalo. Here the Snakes and
Flatheads joined with the white hunters in a successful hunt, that soon
filled the camp with provisions.

On the morning of the 9th of September, the travellers parted company
with their Indian friends, and continued on their course to the west.
A march of thirty miles brought them, in the evening, to the banks of a
rapid and beautifully clear stream about a hundred yards wide. It is the
north fork or branch of the Bighorn River, but bears its peculiar
name of the Wind River, from being subject in the winter season to a
continued blast which sweeps its banks and prevents the snow from lying
on them. This blast is said to be caused by a narrow gap or funnel
in the mountains, through which the river forces its way between
perpendicular precipices, resembling cut rocks.

This river gives its name to a whole range of mountains consisting
of three parallel chai