If they reached the Wallamut, they could scarcely hope
to obtain sufficient supplies for the winter; if they lingered
any longer in the country the snows would gather upon the
mountains and cut off their retreat. By hastening their return,
they would be able to reach the Blue Mountains just in time to
find the elk, the deer, and the bighorn; and after they had
supplied themselves with provisions, they might push through the
mountains before they were entirely blocked by snow. Influenced
by these considerations, Captain Bonneville reluctantly turned
his back a second time on the Columbia, and set off for the Blue
Mountains. He took his course up John Day's River, so called from
one of the hunters in the original Astorian enterprise. As famine
was at his heels, he travelled fast, and reached the mountains by
the 1st of October. He entered by the opening made by John Day's
River; it was a rugged and difficult defile, but he and his men
had become accustomed to hard scrambles of the kind. Fortunately,
the September rains had extinguished the fires which recently
spread over these regions; and the mountains, no longer wrapped
in smoke, now revealed all their grandeur and sublimity to the
eye.
They were disappointed in their expectation of finding abundant
game in the mountains; large bands of the natives had passed
through, returning from their fishing expeditions, and had driven
all the game before them. It was only now and then that the
hunters could bring in sufficient to keep the party from
starvation.
To add to their distress, they mistook their route, and wandered
for ten days among high and bald hills of clay. At length, after
much perplexity, they made their way to the banks of Snake River,
following the course of which, they were sure to reach their
place of destination.
It was the 20th of October when they found themselves once more
upon this noted stream. The Shoshokoes, whom they had met with in
such scanty numbers on their journey down the river, now
absolutely thronged its banks to profit by the abundance of
salmon, and lay up a stock for winter provisions. Scaffolds were
everywhere erected, and immense quantities of fish drying upon
them. At this season of the year, however, the salmon are
extremely poor, and the travellers needed their keen sauce of
hunger to give them a relish.
In some places the shores were completely covered with a stratum
of dead salmon, exhausted in ascending the river, or destroyed at
the falls; the fetid odor of which tainted the air.
It was not until the travellers reached the head-waters of the
Portneuf that they really found themselves in a region of
abundance. Here the buffaloes were in immense herds; and here
they remained for three days, slaying and cooking, and feasting,
and indemnifying themselves by an enormous carnival, for a long
and hungry Lent.
