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 meas 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 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 
fishing, shooting a few birds, and trapping small 
animals that frequent the plains and streams 
adjacent to their village on the Pelouse. Their 
