Another travelling company had encamped on the banks of the Snake River during the absence of the hunting-party. It consisted of thirty men, thirteen of them Indians, Nez Percés, Chinooks, and Kayouse, the remainder French-Canadians and half-breeds. Mr M'Kay, the leader of this company, was the son of Mr Alexander M'Kay, one of the early adventurers across the prairies, the tragical story of whose massacre by the Indians on the north-west coast is told by Washington Irving in his Astoria. Mr Townsend gives an interesting description of this company and its captain. On the evening of the 26th,' he says, 'Captain Wyeth, Mr Nuttall, and myself supped with Mr M'Kay in his lodge. I am much pleased with this gentleman; he unites the free, frank, and open manners of the mountain man with the grace and affability of the Frenchman. But above all, I admire the order, decorum, and strict subordination which exists among his men; so different from what I have been accustomed to see in parties composed of Americans. Mr M'Kay assures me that he had considerable difficulty in bringing his men to the state in which they now are. The free and fearless Indian was particularly difficult to subdue; but steady determined perseverance and bold measures, aided by a rigid self-example, made them as clay in his hand, and has finally reduced them to their present admirable condition. If they misbehave, a commensurate punishment is sure to follow. In extreme cases, flagellation is resorted to, but it is inflicted only by the hand of the captain; were any other appointed to perform this office on an Indian, the indignity would be deemed so great that nothing less than the blood of the individual could appease the wounded feelings of the savage. After supper was concluded, we sat down on a buffalo robe at the entrance of the lodge to see the Indians at their devotions. The whole thirteen were soon collected at the call of one whom they had chosen for their chief, and seated with sober sedate countenances around a large fire. After remaining in perfect silence for perhaps fifteen minutes, the chief commenced a harangue in a solemn and impressive tone, reminding them of the object for which they were thus assembled that of worshipping the "Great Spirit who made the light and the darkness, the fire and the water," and assured them that if they offered up their prayers to him with but " one tongue," they would certainly be accepted. He then rose from his squatting position to his knees, and his example was followed by all the others. In this situation he commenced a prayer, consisting of short sentences, uttered rapidly but with great apparent fervour, his hands clasped upon his breast, and his eyes cast upwards with a beseeching look towards heaven. At the conclusion of each sentence, a choral response of a few words was made, accompanied frequently by low moaning. The prayer lasted about twenty minutes.

After its conclusion, the chief, still maintaining the same position of his body and hands, but with his head bent to his breast,

commenced a kind of psalm or sacred song, in which the whole company presently joined. The song was a simple expression of a few sounds, no intelligible words being uttered. It resembled the words Ho-ha-ho-ha-ho-ha-ha-a, commencing in a low tone, and gradually swelling to a full, round, and beautifully modulated chorus. During the song the clasped hands of the worshippers were moved rapidly across the breast, and their bodies swung with great energy to the time of the music. The chief ended the song by a kind of swelling groan, which was echoed in chorus. It was then taken up by another, and the same routine was gone through. The whole ceremony occupied perhaps an hour and a half; a short silence then succeeded, after which each Indian rose from the ground, and disappeared in the darkness with a step noiseless as that of a spectre. I think I never was more gratified by any exhibition in my life. The humble, subdued, and beseeching looks of the poor untutored beings who were calling upon their heavenly Father to forgive their sins, and continue his mercies to them, and the evident and heartfelt sincerity which characterised the whole scene, was truly affecting and very impressive.

'The next day being the Sabbath, our good missionary, Mr Jason Lee, was requested to hold a meeting, with which he obligingly complied. A convenient shady spot was selected in the forest adjacent, and the greater part of our men, as well as the whole of Mr M'Kay's company, including the Indians, attended. The usual forms of the Methodist service, to which Mr Lee is attached, were gone through, and were followed by a brief but excellent and appropriate exhortation by that gentleman. The people were remarkably quiet and attentive, and the Indians sat upon the ground like statues. Although not one of them could understand a word that was said, they nevertheless maintained the most strict and decorous silence, kneeling when the preacher kneeled, and rising when he rose, evidently with a view of paying him and us a suitable respect, however much their own notions as to the proper and most acceptable forms of worship might have been opposed to ours. A meeting for worship in the Rocky Mountains is almost as unusual as the appearance of a herd of buffalo in the settlements. A sermon was perhaps never preached here before, but for myself I really enjoyed the whole scene: it possessed the charm of novelty, to say nothing of the salutary effect which I sincerely hope it may produce.'

After having completed the fort, and raised the American flag upon it, the party on the 6th of August recommenced their journey westward, leaving some men in charge of the building. The company consisted now but of thirty men, several Indian women, and one hundred and sixteen horses. Having left most of the fresh buffalomeat brought in by the hunting-party in the fort for the subsistence of the small garrison, they had to be contented with the old dry meat they had carried for many weeks in their hampers, varied with

the flesh of a grisly bear, or any such animal which good fortune might send across their path. Nor was this the worst, for on the very day after leaving the fort, having travelled from sunrise over an arid plain covered with jagged masses of lava and twisted wormwood bushes, and where not a drop of water was to be seen, they began to suffer dreadfully from thirst. Every man kept a bullet or smooth stone in his mouth, mumbling it to provoke the saliva. At last one of the men, a mulatto, 'cast himself resolutely from his horse to the ground, and declared that he would lie there till he died; "there was no water in this horrid country, and he might as well die here as go farther." Some of us tried to infuse a little courage into him, but it proved of no avail, and each was too much occupied with his own particular grief to use his tongue much in persuasion; so we left him to his fate.

Soon after nightfall, some signs of water were seen in a small valley to our left, and upon ascending it, the foremost of the party found a delightful little cold spring; but they soon exhausted it, and then commenced, with axes and knives, to dig it out and enlarge it. By the time that Mr Nuttall and myself arrived, they had excavated a large space, which was filled to overflowing with muddy water. We did not wait for it to settle, however, but throwing ourselves flat upon the ground, drank until we were ready to burst. The tales which I had read of suffering travellers in the Arabian deserts then recurred with some force to my recollection, and I thought I could, though in a very small measure, appreciate their sufferings by deprivation, and their unmingled delight and satisfaction in the opportunity of assuaging them.

Poor Jim, the mulatto man, was found by one of the people who went back in search of him lying where he had first fallen, and, either in a real or pretended swoon, still obstinate about dying, and scarcely heeding the assurances of the other that water was within a mile of him. He was, however, at length dragged and carried into camp, and soused head foremost into the mud-puddle, where he drank until his eyes seemed ready to burst from his head, and he was lifted out, and laid dripping and flaccid upon the ground.'

The ground over which the party was travelling was becoming more and more rugged and rocky. They entered a defile between the mountains, about five hundred yards wide, covered like the surrounding country with pines; and as they proceeded, the timber grew so closely, added to a thick undergrowth of bushes, that it appeared almost impossible to proceed with their horses. The farther they advanced the more their difficulties seemed to increase; obstacles of various kinds impeded their progress-fallen trees, their branches tangled and matted together; large rocks and deep ravines; holes in the ground, into which their animals would be precipitated without the possibility of avoiding them; and a hundred other difficulties.

After travelling for six miles through this defile, two of the party, Captain Wyeth and the experienced hunter Richardson, set out to explore the foreground, and look for a pass through the mountains. They returned next morning with the mortifying intelligence that no pass could be found. They had climbed to the very summit of the highest peaks above the snow and the reach of vegetation, and the only prospect they had was a confused mass of huge angular rocks, over which a wild goat could scarcely make his way. The captain also had a narrow escape from being dashed to pieces during the excursion. He was walking on a ridge which sloped from the top at an angle of about forty degrees, and terminated at its lower part in a perpendicular precipice of a thousand or twelve hundred feet. He was moving along in the snow cautiously, near the lower edge, in order to attain a more level spot beyond, when his feet slipped and he fell. Before he could attempt to fix himself firmly, he slid down the declivity till within a few feet of the frightful precipice. At the instant of his fall, he had the presence of mind to plant the rifle which he held in one hand, and his knife which he drew from the scabbard with the other, into the snow, and as he almost tottered on the verge, he succeeded in checking himself, and holding his body perfectly still. He then gradually moved, first the rifle and then the knife, backward up the slanting hill behind him, and fixing them firmly, drew up his body parallel to them. In this way he moved slowly and surely until he had gained his former position, when, without further difficulty, he succeeded in reaching the more level land.

Disappointed in finding a pass through the mountains at this point, the party altered the bearing of their route, and at last they came upon the remains of a recent encampment of Indians. Following the trail of these Indians, they entered a valley similar to that which they had just explored, and terminating in a path over the mountains. Mr Townsend thus describes their toilsome march across these heights. 'The commencement of the alpine path was, however, far better than we had expected, and we entertained the hope that the passage could be made without difficulty or much toil; but the farther we progressed, the more laborious the travelling became. Sometimes we mounted steep banks of intermingled flinty rock and friable slate, where our horses could scarcely obtain a footing, frequently sliding down several feet on the loose broken stones. Again we passed along the extreme verge of tremendous precipices at a giddy height, where at almost every step the stones and earth would roll from under our horses' feet, and we could hear them strike with a dull leaden sound on the craggy rocks below. The whole journey to-day, from the time we arrived at the heights until we had crossed the mountain, has been a most fearful one. For myself, I might have diminished the danger very considerably by adopting the plan pursued by the rest of the company, that of walking and

leading my horse over the most dangerous places; but I have been suffering for several days with a lame foot, and am wholly incapable of such exertion. I soon discovered that an attempt to guide my horse over the most rugged and steepest ranges was worse than useless, so I dropped the rein upon the animal's neck, and allowed him to take his own course, closing my eyes and keeping as quiet as possible in the saddle. But I could not forbear starting occasionally when the feet of my horse would slip on a stone, and one side of him would slide rapidly towards the edge of the precipice; but I always recovered myself by a desperate effort, and it was fortunate for me that I did so.'

The party continued its march for several days through this rugged and inhospitable region, coming into occasional contact with parties of the Snake Indians, and subsisting on the kamas, a kind of root resembling the potato, which is found in the prairie; on cherries, berries, and small fruit, which they found growing on bushes; and also on an occasional chance prize of animal food. 'At about daylight on the morning of the 20th,' says Mr Townsend, 'having charge of the last guard of the night, I observed a beautiful sleek little colt, of about four months old, trot into the camp, whinnying with great apparent pleasure, and dancing and curveting gaily amongst our sober and sedate band. I had no doubt that he had strayed from Indians, who were probably in the neighbourhood; but as here every animal that comes near us is fair game, and as we were hungry, not having eaten anything of consequence since yesterday morning, I thought the little stranger would make a good breakfast for us. Concluding, however, that it would be best to act advisedly in the matter, I put my head into Captain Wyeth's tent, and telling him the news, made the proposition which had occurred to me. The captain's reply was encouraging enough-" Down with him, if you please, Mr Townsend; and let us have him for breakfast." Accordingly, in five minutes afterwards à bullet sealed the fate of the unfortunate visitor, and my men were set to work, making fires and rummaging out the long-neglected stew-pans, while I engaged myself in flaying the little animal, and cutting up his body in readiness for the pots.

'When the camp was aroused about an hour after, the savoury steam of the cookery was rising and saluting the nostrils of our hungry people with its fragrance, who, rubbing their hands with delight, sat themselves down upon the ground, waiting with what patience they might for the unexpected repast which was preparing for them. It was to me almost equal to a good breakfast to witness the pleasure and satisfaction which I had been the means of diffusing through the camp. The repast was ready at length, and we did full justice to it; every man ate until he was filled, and all pronounced it one of the most delicious meals they had ever assisted in demolishing. When our breakfast was concluded, but little of