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. Their horses, too, found good pasturage, and
enjoyed a little rest after a severe spell of hard travelling.
During this period, two horsemen arrived at the camp, who proved
to be messengers sent express for supplies from Montero's party;
which had been sent to beat up the Crow country and the Black
Hills, and to winter on the Arkansas. They reported that all was
well with the party, but that they had not been able to
accomplish the whole of their mission, and were still in the Crow
country, where they should remain until joined by Captain
Bonneville in the spring. The captain retained the messengers
with him until the 17th of November, when, having reached the
caches on Bear River, and procured thence the required supplies,
he sent them back to their party; appointing a rendezvous toward
the last of June following, on the forks of Wind River Valley, in
the Crow country.
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