On The 4th, They Broke Up Their Encampment, And Crossed The
River, The Water Coming Up To The Girths Of Their Horses.
After
travelling four miles, they encamped at the foot of the mountain,
the last, as they hoped, which they should have to traverse.
Four
days more took them across it, and over several plains, watered
by beautiful little streams, tributaries of Mad River. Near one
of their encampments there was a hot spring continually emitting
a cloud of vapor. These elevated plains, which give a peculiar
character to the mountains, are frequented by large gangs of
antelopes, fleet as the wind.
On the evening of the 8th of October, after a cold wintry day,
with gusts of westerly wind and flurries of snow, they arrived at
the sought-for post of Mr. Henry. Here he had fixed himself,
after being compelled by the hostilities of the Blackfeet, to
abandon the upper waters of the Missouri. The post, however, was
deserted, for Mr. Henry had left it in the course of the
preceding spring, and, as it afterwards appeared, had fallen in
with Mr. Lisa, at the Arickara village on the Missouri, some time
after the separation of Mr. Hunt and his party.
The weary travellers gladly took possession of the deserted log
huts which had formed the post, and which stood on the bank of a
stream upwards of a hundred yards wide, on which they intended to
embark. There being plenty of suitable timber in the
neighborhood, Mr. Hunt immediately proceeded to construct canoes.
As he would have to leave his horses and their accoutrements
here, he determined to make this a trading post, where the
trappers and hunters, to be distributed about the country, might
repair; and where the traders might touch on their way through
the mountains to and from the establishment at the mouth of the
Columbia.
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