is neighborhood until Mr. Reed should arrive; whose arrival
might soon be expected, as he was to set out for the caches about twenty
days after Mr. Stuart parted with him at the Wallah-Wallah River.

Mr. Stuart gave in charge to Robinson a letter to Mr. Reed, reporting
his safe journey thus far, and the state in which he had found the
caches. A duplicate of this letter he elevated on a pole, and set it up
near the place of deposit.

All things being thus arranged, Mr. Stuart and his little band, now
seven in number, took leave of the three hardy trappers, wishing
them all possible success in their lonely and perilous sojourn in the
wilderness; and we, in like manner, shall leave them to their fortunes,
promising to take them up again at some future page, and to close the
story of their persevering and ill-fated enterprise.

CHAPTER XLV.

The Snake River Deserts.--Scanty Fare.--Bewildered
Travellers--Prowling Indians--A Giant Crow Chief.--A Bully
Rebuked--Indian Signals.--Smoke on the Mountains.--Mad
River.--An Alarm.--An Indian Foray--A Scamper.--A Rude
Indian joke.--A Sharp-Shooter Balked of His Shot.

ON the 1st of September, Mr. Stuart and his companions resumed their
journey, bending their course eastward, along the course of Snake River.
As they advanced the country opened. The hills which had hemmed in the
river receded on either hand, and great sandy and dusty plains extended
before them. Occasionally there were intervals of pasturage, and the
banks of the river were fringed with willows and cottonwood, so that its
course might be traced from the hilltops, winding under an umbrageous
covert, through a wide sunburnt landscape. The soil, however, was
generally poor; there was in some places a miserable growth of wormwood,
and a plant called saltweed, resembling pennyroyal; but the summer had
parched the plains, and left but little pasturage. The game, too, had
disappeared. The hunter looked in vain over the lifeless landscape;
now and then a few antelope might be seen, but not within reach of the
rifle. We forbear to follow the travellers in a week's wandering over
these barren wastes, where they suffered much from hunger, having to
depend upon a few fish from the streams, and now and then a little dried
salmon, or a dog, procured from some forlorn lodge of Shoshonies.

Tired of these cheerless wastes, they left the banks of Snake River on
the 7th of September, under guidance of