e in their habits, and seemed to
cling to the usages of savage life, even when possessed of the aids of
civilization. They had axes among them, yet they generally made use of a
stone mallet wrought into the shape of a bottle, and wedges of elk
horn, in splitting their wood. Though they might have two or three brass
kettles hanging, in their lodges, yet they would frequently use vessels
made of willow, for carrying water, and would even boll their meat in
them, by means of hot stones. Their women wore caps of willow neatly
worked and figured.

As Carriere, the Canadian straggler, did not make his appearance for two
or three days after the encampment in the valley two men were sent out
on horseback in search of him. They returned, however, without success.
The lodges of the Snake Indians near which he had been seen were
removed, and the could find no trace of him. Several days more elapsed,
yet nothing was seen or heard of him, or the Snake horseman, behind whom
he had been last observed. It was feared, therefore, that he had either
perished through hunger and fatigue; had been murdered by the Indians;
or, being left to himself, had mistaken some hunting tracks for the
trail of the party, and been led astray and lost.

The river on the banks of which they were encamped, emptied into the
Columbia, was called by the natives the Eu-o-tal-la, or Umatilla, and
abounded with beaver. In the course of their sojourn in the valley which
it watered, they twice shifted their camp, proceeding about thirty miles
down its course, which was to the west. A heavy fall of rain caused the
river to overflow its banks, dislodged them from their encampment, and
drowned three of their horses which were tethered in the low ground.

Further conversation with the Indians satisfied them that they were in
the neighborhood of the Columbia. The number of the white men who they
said had passed down the river, agreed with that of M'Lellan, M'Kenzie,
and their companions, and increased the hope of Mr. Hunt that they might
have passed through the wilderness with safety.

These Indians had a vague story that white men were coming to trade
among them; and they often spoke of two great men named Ke-Koosh and
Jacquean, who gave them tobacco, and smoked with them. Jacquean, they
said, had a house somewhere upon the great river. Some of the Canadians
supposed they were speaking of one Jacquean Finlay, a clerk of the
Northwest Company, and inferred that the ho