ghty-six of the
finest horses carried off. A whip and a rope were left in a conspicuous
situation by the robbers, as a taunt to the simpletons they had
unhorsed.

Long before sunrise the news of this calamity spread like wildfire
through the different encampments. Captain Bonneville, whose own horses
remained safe at their pickets, watched in momentary expectation of an
outbreak of warriors, Pierced-nose and Flathead, in furious pursuit
of the marauders; but no such thing--they contented themselves with
searching diligently over hill and dale, to glean up such horses as
had escaped the hands of the marauders, and then resigned themselves to
their loss with the most exemplary quiescence.

Some, it is true, who were entirely unhorsed, set out on a begging visit
to their cousins, as they called them, the Lower Nez Perces, who inhabit
the lower country about the Columbia, and possess horses in abundance.
To these they repair when in difficulty, and seldom fail, by dint of
begging and bartering, to get themselves once more mounted on horseback.

Game had now become scarce in the neighborhood of the camp, and it was
necessary, according to Indian custom, to move off to a less beaten
ground. Captain Bonneville proposed the Horse Prairie; but his Indian
friends objected that many of the Nez Perces had gone to visit their
cousins, and that the whites were few in number, so that their united
force was not sufficient to Venture upon the buffalo grounds, which were
infested by bands of Blackfeet.

They now spoke of a place at no great distance, which they represented
as a perfect hunter's elysium. It was on the right branch, or head
stream of the river, locked up among cliffs and precipices where there
was no danger from roving bands, and where the Blackfeet dare not enter.
Here, they said, the elk abounded, and the mountain sheep were to be
seen trooping upon the rocks and hills. A little distance beyond it,
also, herds of buffalo were to be met with, Out of range of danger.
Thither they proposed to move their camp.

The proposition pleased the captain, who was desirous, through the
Indians, of becoming acquainted with all the secret places of the land.
Accordingly, on the 9th of December, they struck their tents, and moved
forward by short stages, as many of the Indians were yet feeble from the
late malady.

Following up the right fork of the river they came to where it entered
a deep gorge of the mountains, up which lay t