s conspire to give us a thorough drenching. Wet,
chilled, and tired to exhaustion, we stop at a cottonwood grove on the
bank, build a huge fire, make a cup of coffee, and are soon refreshed
and quite merry. When the clouds "get out of our sunshine" we start
again. A few miles farther down a flock of mountain sheep are seen on a
cliff to the right. The boats are quietly tied up and three or four men
go after them. In the course of two or three hours they return. The cook
has been successful in bringing down a fat lamb. The unsuccessful
hunters taunt him with finding it dead; but it is soon dressed, cooked,
and eaten, and makes a fine four o'clock dinner.

"All aboard," and down the river for another dozen miles. On the way we
pass the mouth of Black's Fork, a dirty little stream that seems
somewhat swollen. Just below its mouth we land and camp.

_May 26.--_To-day we pass several curiously shaped buttes, standing
between the west bank of the river and the high bluffs beyond. These
buttes are outliers of the same beds of rocks as are exposed on the
faces of the bluffs,--thinly laminated shales and sandstones of many
colors, standing above in vertical cliffs and buttressed below with a
water-carved talus; some of them attain an altitude of nearly a thousand
feet above the level of the river.

We glide quietly down the placid stream past the carved cliffs of the
_mauvaises terres,_ now and then obtaining glimpses of distant
mountains. Occasionally, deer are started from the glades among the
willows; and several wild geese, after a chase through the water, are
shot. After dinner we pass through a short and narrow canyon into a
broad valley; from this, long, lateral valleys stretch back on either
side as far as the eye can reach.

Two or three miles below, Henry's Fork enters from the right. We land a
short distance above the junction, where a _cache_ of instruments and
rations was made several months ago in a cave at the foot of the cliff,
a distance back from the river. Here they were safe from the elements
and wild beasts, but not from man. Some anxiety is felt, as we have
learned that a party of Indians have been camped near the place for
several weeks. Our fears are soon allayed, for we find the _cache_
undisturbed. Our chronometer wheels have not been taken for hair
ornaments, our barometer tubes for beads, or the sextant thrown into the
river as "bad medicine," as had been predicted. Taking up our _cache,_
we pass