MUSTANG TRAILS. 105 



sized stream. The scenery is generally wild and 

 massive; in every direction immense walls of 

 rocks shut in the Snake river bare, black, and 

 desolate ; not a tree or shrub grows from amidst 

 their craggy ledges. I am told the course of this 

 river may be followed for days in some places, 

 and by no possible means can its waters be 

 reached, so that one might die from thirst 

 although on the bank of a river. 



One thing struck me as being very remarkable ; 

 up the steepish ledges of these rocky clifts were 

 trails, beaten bare as turnpike-roads, and so 

 numerous that they almost resembled lines on a 

 railway-map. At first I thought goats must have 

 made them, but on enquiry I discover the paths 

 are used by the Indian horses that belonged to the 

 Pelouse tribe. The mustangs scramble up these 

 precipitous tracts, to browse on the scanty herbage 

 that grows in the clefts and on the ledges of the 

 rocks. The Pelouse Indians were at one time 

 numerous, predatory, and always at war, but this 

 once-dreaded tribe has dwindled away to a mere 

 remnant. 



Those that are left exist, rather than live, by 

 fi&hing, shooting a few birds, and trapping small 

 animals that frequent the plains and streams 

 adjacent to their village on the Pelouse. Their 



