WASHINGTON IRVING'i ASTORIA. 557 



"The party now crowded round the Snake, and began to question with, 

 eagerness. His replies were somewhat vague, and but partially understood. 

 He told a long story about the horses, from which it appeared that they had 

 been stolen by various wandering bands, and scattered in different directions. 

 The cache, too, had been plundered, and the saddles and other equipments 

 carried off. 



" In the course of conversation, the Indian informed them that the route by 

 which Mr. Hunt had crossed the Rocky Mountains was very bad and circui- 

 tous, and that he knew one much shorter and easier. Mr. Stuart urged him 

 to accompany them as guide, promising to reward him with a pistol with 

 powder and ball, a knife, an awl, some blue beads, a blanket, and a looking- 

 glass. Such a catalogue of riches was too tempting to be resisted; beside, 

 the poor Snake languished after the prairies ; he was tired, he said, of salmon, 

 and longed for buffalo meat, and to have a grand buffalo hunt beyond the 

 mountains. He departed, therefore, with all speed, to get his arms and 

 equipments for the journey, promising to rejoin the party the next day. He 

 kept his word, and, as he no longer said any thing to Mr. Stuart on the subject 

 of the pet horse, they journeyed very harmoniously together ; though now and 

 then the Snake would regard his quondam steed with a wistful eye. They 

 had travelled many miles, when they came to a great bend of the river. Here 

 the Snake informed them that, by cutting across the hills, they would 

 save many miles of distance. The route across, however, would be a good 

 day's journey. He advised them, therefore, to encamp here for that night, 

 and set off early in the morning. They took his advice, though they had come 

 but nine miles that day. 



" On the following morning they rose, bright and early, to ascend the hills. 

 On mustering their little party, the guide was missing. They supposed him 

 to be in the neighbourhood, and proceeded to collect the horses. The vaunted 

 steed of Mr. Stuart was not to be found. A suspicion flashed upon his mind. 

 Search for the horse of the Snake ! He likewise was gone, the tracks of two 

 horses, one after the other, were found, making off from the camp. They ap- 

 peared as if one horse had been mounted, and the other led. They were 

 traced for a few miles above the camp, until they both crossed the river. It 

 was plain the Snake had taken an Indian mode of recovering his horse, hav- 

 ing quietly decamped with him in the night." Vol. iii. pp. 25 30. 



The loss of a horse, and one of the best horses in the party, one 

 too intended for the great nabob, Mr. Astor, to a corps of adven- 

 turers over the hilly regions of the Rocky Mountains, can only be 

 properly estimated by those who have been placed under circum- 

 stances equally critical and necessitous. The same day, however, 

 to balance, as it were, their ill-luck, they fell in with four of their 

 old comrades, who had left them in their first journey from St. 

 Louis in order to go on a trapping expedition, these gentlemen 

 being yclept Miller, Rezner, Hoback, and Robinson, the latter three 

 being professionals. Passing over the amusing adventures of these 

 accessories we accompany the main party up the Snake river to their 

 arrival at the Salmon falls on the 25th of August, and on the 29th at 

 the Caldron Linn, the scene of so many of their former sufferings, 

 and the immediate neighbourhood of the caches made by Mr. Hunt's 

 direction. With that portion of deposit that had escaped Indian and 

 wolfish curiosity, the three trappers were again equipped, and soon 

 took their conge. The remainder, seven in number, resumed their 

 route up the river and into the mountain regions, where they met 

 with many reverses of fortune from the insolence and robbery of the 

 Crows, and scarcely less from the wilfulness of some members of 



