n being promised an ample compensation, engaged to have a
guardian eye upon them; then mounting his steed, and putting himself
at the head of his little caravan, he shook the dust off his feet as he
turned his back upon this village of rogues and hard dealers. We shall
not follow him minutely in his journey; which lay at times over steep
and rocky hills, and among crags and precipices; at other times
over vast naked and sunburnt plains, abounding with rattlesnakes, in
traversing which, both men and horses suffered intolerably from heat and
thirst. The place on which he fixed for a trading post, was a fine point
of land, at the junction of the Pointed Heart and Spokan Rivers.
His establishment was intended to compete with a trading post of the
Northwest Company, situated at no great distance, and to rival it in
the trade with the Spokan Indians; as well as with the Cootonais and
Flatheads. In this neighborhood we shall leave him for the present.

Mr. M'Kenzie, who conducted the third party from the Wallah-Wallah,
navigated for several days up the south branch of the Columbia, named
the Camoenum by the natives, but commonly called Lewis River, in honor
of the first explorer. Wandering bands of various tribes were seen along
this river, travelling in various directions; for the Indians generally
are restless, roving beings, continually intent on enterprises of war,
traffic, and hunting. Some of these people were driving large gangs of
horses, as if to a distant market. Having arrived at the mouth of the
Shahaptan, he ascended some distance up that river, and established his
trading post upon its banks. This appeared to be a great thoroughfare
for the tribes from the neighborhood of the Falls of the Columbia, in
their expeditions to make war upon the tribes of the Rocky Mountains; to
hunt buffalo on the plains beyond, or to traffic for roots and buffalo
robes. It was the season of migration, and the Indians from various
distant parts were passing and repassing in great numbers.

Mr. M'Kenzie now detached a small band, under the conduct of Mr. John
Reed, to visit the caches made by Mr. Hunt at the Caldron Linn, and to
bring the contents to his post; as he depended, in some measure, on them
for his supplies of goods and ammunition. They had not been gone a week,
when two Indians arrived of the Pallatapalla tribe, who live upon a
river of the same name. These communicated the unwelcome intelligence
that the caches had been rob