be brought back at all.

Being convinced, therefore, from these, and other circumstances, that
his people were encamped in the neighborhood of a tribe as honest as
they were valiant, and satisfied that they would pass their winter
unmolested, Captain Bonneville prepared for a reconnoitring expedition
of great extent and peril. This was, to penetrate to the Hudson's
Bay establishments on the banks of the Columbia, and to make himself
acquainted with the country and the Indian tribes; it being one part of
his scheme to establish a trading post somewhere on the lower part of
the river, so as to participate in the trade lost to the United States
by the capture of Astoria. This expedition would, of course, take him
through the Snake River country, and across the Blue Mountains, the
scenes of so much hardship and disaster to Hunt and Crooks, and their
Astorian bands, who first explored it, and he would have to pass through
it in the same frightful season, the depth of winter.

The idea of risk and hardship, however, only served to stimulate the
adventurous spirit of the captain. He chose three companions for his
journey, put up a small stock of necessaries in the most portable form,
and selected five horses and mules for themselves and their baggage. He
proposed to rejoin his band in the early part of March, at the winter
encampment near the Portneuf. All these arrangements being completed,
he mounted his horse on Christmas morning, and set off with his three
comrades. They halted a little beyond the Bannack camp, and made their
Christmas dinner, which, if not a very merry, was a very hearty one,
after which they resumed their journey.

They were obliged to travel slowly, to spare their horses; for the snow
had increased in depth to eighteen inches; and though somewhat packed
and frozen, was not sufficiently so to yield firm footing. Their route
lay to the west, down along the left side of Snake River; and they were
several days in reaching the first, or American Falls. The banks of the
river, for a considerable distance, both above and below the falls,
have a volcanic character: masses of basaltic rock are piled one upon
another; the water makes its way through their broken chasms, boiling
through narrow channels, or pitching in beautiful cascades over ridges
of basaltic columns.

Beyond these falls, they came to a picturesque, but inconsiderable
stream, called the Cassie. It runs through a level valley, about four
mil