The product of their
fishing, however, was very scanty. Their trapping was also
precarious; and the tails and bellies of the beavers were dried
and put by for the journey.
At length two of the companions of Mr. Reed returned, and were
hailed with the most anxious eagerness. Their report served but
to increase the general despondency. They had followed Mr. Reed
for some distance below the point to which Mr. Hunt had explored,
but had met with no Indians from whom to obtain information and
relief. The river still presented the same furious aspect,
brawling and boiling along a narrow and rugged channel, between
rocks that rose like walls.
A lingering hope, which had been indulged by some of the party,
of proceeding by water, was now finally given up: the long and
terrific strait of the river set all further progress at
defiance, and in their disgust at the place, and their vexation
at the disasters sustained there, they gave it the indignant,
though not very decorous, appellation of the Devil's Scuttle
Hole.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Determination of the Party to Proceed on Foot.- Dreary Deserts
Between Snake River and the Columbia.- Distribution of Effects
Preparatory to a March- Division of the Party.- Rugged March
Along the River.-Wild and Broken Scenery.- Shoshonies.- Alarm of
a Snake Encampment- Intercourse with the Snakes.- Horse Dealing.
- Value of a Tin Kettle.- Sufferings From Thirst- A Horse
Reclaimed. -Fortitude of an Indian Woman.- Scarcity of Food.-
Dog's Flesh a Dainty.-News of Mr. Crooks and His Party.-Painful
Travelling Among the Mountains.- Snow Storms.- A Dreary Mountain
Prospect. -A Bivouac During a Wintry Night.- Return to the River
Bank.
THE resolution of Mr. Hunt and his companions was now taken to
set out immediately on foot. As to the other detachments that had
in a manner gone forth to seek their fortunes, there was little
chance of their return; they would probably make their own way
through the wilderness. At any rate, to linger in the vague hope
of relief from them would be to run the risk of perishing with
hunger. Besides, the winter was rapidly advancing, and they had a
long journey to make through an unknown country, where all kinds
of perils might await them. They were yet, in fact, a thousand
miles from Astoria, but the distance was unknown to them at the
time: everything before and around them was vague and
conjectural, and wore an aspect calculated to inspire
despondency.
In abandoning the river, they would have to launch forth upon
vast trackless plains destitute of all means of subsistence,
where they might perish of hunger and thirst. A dreary desert of
sand and gravel extends from Snake River almost to the Columbia.
Here and there is a thin and scanty herbage, insufficient for the
pasturage of horse or buffalo. Indeed, these treeless wastes
between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific are even more
desolate and barren than the naked, upper prairies on the
Atlantic side; they present vast desert tracts that must ever
defy cultivation, and interpose dreary and thirsty wilds between
the habitations of man, in traversing which the wanderer will
often be in danger of perishing.
Seeing the hopeless character of these wastes, Mr. Hunt and his
companions determined to keep along the course of the river,
where they would always have water at hand, and would be able
occasionally to procure fish and beaver, and might perchance meet
with Indians, from whom they could obtain provisions.
They now made their final preparations for the march. All their
remaining stock of provisions consisted of forty pounds of Indian
corn, twenty pounds of grease, about five pounds of portable
soup, and a sufficient quantity of dried meat to allow each man a
pittance of five pounds and a quarter, to be reserved for
emergencies. This being properly distributed, they deposited all
their goods and superfluous articles in the caches, taking
nothing with them but what was indispensable to the journey. With
all their management, each man had to carry twenty pounds' weight
besides his own articles and equipments.
That they might have the better chance of procuring subsistence
in the scanty region they were to traverse, they divided their
party into two bands. Mr. Hunt, with eighteen men, besides Pierre
Dorion and his family, was to proceed down the north side of the
river, while Mr. Crooks, with eighteen men, kept along the south
side.
On the morning of the 9th of October, the two parties separated
and set forth on their several courses. Mr. Hunt and his
companions followed along the right bank of the river, which made
its way far below them, brawling at the foot of perpendicular
precipices of solid rock, two and three hundred feet high. For
twenty-eight miles that they travelled this day, they found it
impossible to get down to the margin of the stream. At the end of
this distance they encamped for the night at a place which
admitted a scrambling descent. It was with the greatest
difficulty, however, that they succeeded in getting up a kettle
of water from the river for the use of the camp. As some rain had
fallen in the afternoon, they passed the night under the shelter
of the rocks.
The next day they continued thirty-two miles to the northwest,
keeping along the river, which still ran in its deep-cut channel.
Here and there a shady beach or a narrow strip of soil, fringed
with dwarf willows, would extend for a little distance along the
foot of the cliffs, and sometimes a reach of still water would
intervene like a smooth mirror between the foaming rapids.
As through the preceding day, they journeyed on without finding,
except in one instance, any place where they could get down to
the river's edge, and they were fain to allay the thirst caused
by hard travelling, with the water collected in the hollow of the
rocks.
