murmur, and throughout this weary and painful journey had kept pace with
the best of the pedestrians. Indeed on various occasions in the course
of this enterprise, she displayed a force of character that won the
respect and applause of the white men.

Mr. Hunt endeavored to gather some information from these Indians
concerning the country and the course of the rivers. His communications
with them had to be by signs, and a few words which he had learnt, and
of course were extremely vague. All that he could learn from them was
that the great river, the Columbia, was still far distant, but he could
ascertain nothing as to the route he ought to take to arrive at it. For
the two following days they continued westward upwards of forty miles
along the little stream, until they crossed it just before its junction
with Snake River, which they found still running to the north. Before
them was a wintry-looking mountain covered with snow on all sides.

In three days more they made about seventy miles; fording two small
rivers, the waters of which were very cold. Provisions were extremely
scarce; their chief sustenance was portable soup; a meagre diet for
weary pedestrians.

On the 27th of November the river led them into the mountains through a
rocky defile where there was scarcely room to pass. They were frequently
obliged to unload the horses to get them by the narrow places; and
sometimes to wade through the water in getting round rocks and butting
cliffs. All their food this day was a beaver which they had caught the
night before; by evening, the cravings of hunger were so sharp, and the
prospect of any supply among the mountains so faint, that they had to
kill one of the horses. "The men," says Mr. Hunt in his journal, "find
the meat very good, and, indeed, so should I, were it not for the
attachment I have to the animal."

Early the following day, after proceeding ten miles to the north,
they came to two lodges of Shoshonies, who seemed in nearly as great
extremity as themselves, having just killed two horses for food. They
had no other provisions excepting the seed of a weed which they gather
in great quantities, and pound fine. It resembles hemp-seed. Mr. Hunt
purchased a bag of it, and also some small pieces of horse flesh, which
he began to relish, pronouncing them "fat and tender."

From these Indians he received information that several white men had
gone down the river, some one side, and a good many on the other;