efore winter. Should he fail, however, of obtaining
horses, he would probably be compelled to winter on the Pacific side of
the mountains, somewhere on the head waters of the Spanish or Colorado
River.

With all the care that had been observed in taking nothing with them
that was not absolutely necessary, the poor pedestrians were heavily
laden, and their burdens added to the fatigues of their rugged road.
They suffered much, too, from hunger. The trout they caught were too
poor to yield much nourishment; their main dependence, therefore,
was upon an old beaver trap, which they had providentially retained.
Whenever they were fortunate enough to entrap a beaver, it was cut up
immediately and distributed, that each man might carry his share.

After two days of toilsome travel, during which they made but eighteen
miles, they stopped on the 21st, to build two rafts on which to cross
to the north side of the river. On these they embarked on the following
morning, four on one raft, and three on the other, and pushed boldly
from shore. Finding the rafts sufficiently firm and steady to withstand
the rough and rapid water, they changed their minds, and instead of
crossing, ventured to float down with the current. The river was, in
general, very rapid, and from one to two hundred yards in width, winding
in every direction through mountains of hard black rock, covered with
pines and cedars. The mountains to the east of the river were spurs of
the Rocky range, and of great magnitude; those on the west were little
better than hills, bleak and barren, or scantily clothed with stunted
grass.

Mad River, though deserving its name from the impetuosity of its
current, was free from rapids and cascades, and flowed on in a single
channel between gravel banks, often fringed with cotton-wood and dwarf
willows in abundance. These gave sustenance to immense quantities of
beaver, so that the voyagers found no difficulty in procuring food.
Ben Jones, also, killed a fallow deer and a wolverine, and as they were
enabled to carry the carcasses on their rafts, their larder was well
supplied. Indeed, they might have occasionally shot beavers that were
swimming in the river as they floated by, but they humanely spared their
lives, being in no want of meat at the time. In this way, they kept down
the river for three days, drifting with the current and encamping on
land at night, when they drew up their rafts on shore. Towards the
evening of the thir