orded
them a repast fit for an epicure.

Late on the afternoon of the 30th, they came to where the stream, now
increased to a considerable size, poured along in a ravine between
precipices of red stone, two hundred feet in height. For some distance
it dashed along, over huge masses of rock, with foaming violence, as if
exasperated by being compressed into so narrow a channel, and at length
leaped down a chasm that looked dark and frightful in the gathering
twilight.

For a part of the next day, the wild river, in its capricious
wanderings, led them through a variety of striking scenes. At one time
they were upon high plains, like platforms among the mountains, with
herds of buffaloes roaming about them; at another among rude rocky
defiles, broken into cliffs and precipices, where the blacktailed deer
bounded off among the crags, and the bighorn basked in the sunny brow of
the precipice.

In the after part of the day, they came to another scene, surpassing in
savage grandeur those already described. They had been travelling for
some distance through a pass of the mountains, keeping parallel with
the river, as it roared along, out of sight, through a deep ravine.
Sometimes their devious path approached the margin of cliffs below which
the river foamed, and boiled, and whirled among the masses of rock that
had fallen into its channel. As they crept cautiously on, leading their
solitary pack-horse along these giddy heights, they all at once came to
where the river thundered down a succession of precipices, throwing up
clouds of spray, and making a prodigious din and uproar. The travellers
remained, for a time, gazing with mingled awe and delight, at this
furious cataract, to which Mr. Stuart gave, from the color of the
impending rocks, the name of "The Fiery Narrows."

CHAPTER XLIX.

Wintry Storms.--A Halt and Council.--Cantonment for the
Winter.--Fine Hunting Country.--Game of the Mountains and
Plains.-Successful Hunting--Mr. Crooks and a Grizzly Bear.--
The Wigwam.--Bighorn and Black-Tails.--Beef and Venison.--
Good Quarters and Good Cheer.--An Alarm.--An Intrusion.--
Unwelcome Guests.-Desolation of the Larder.--Gormandizing
Exploits of Hungry Savages.--Good Quarters Abandoned.

THE travellers encamped for the night on the banks of the river below
the cataract. The night was cold, with partial showers of rain and
sleet. The morning dawned gloomily, the skies were sullen and