This They Presumed To Have
Been Made By Another Band Of Crows, Who Had Probably Been Hunting
Lower Down On The Spanish River.
The severity of the weather compelled them to encamp at the end
of fifteen miles, on the skirts of the mountain, where they found
sufficient dry aspen trees to supply them with fire, but they
sought in vain about the neighborhood for a spring or rill of
water.
At daybreak they were up and on the march, scrambling up the
mountain side for the distance of eight painful miles. From the
casual hints given in the travelling memoranda of Mr. Stuart,
this mountain would seem to offer a rich field of speculation for
the geologist. Here was a plain three miles in diameter, strewed
with pumice stones and other volcanic reliques, with a lake in
the centre, occupying what had probably been the crater. Here
were also, in some places, deposits of marine shells, indicating
that this mountain crest had at some remote period been below the
waves.
After pausing to repose, and to enjoy these grand but savage and
awful scenes, they began to descend the eastern side of the
mountain. The descent was rugged and romantic, along deep ravines
and defiles, overhung with crags and cliffs, among which they
beheld numbers of the ahsahta or bighorn, skipping fearlessly
from rock to rock. Two of them they succeeded in bringing down
with their rifles, as they peered fearlessly from the brow of
their airy precipices.
Arrived at the foot of the mountain, the travellers found a rill
of water oozing out of the earth, and resembling in look and
taste, the water of the Missouri.
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