A LAND OF TRAGIC MEMORIES 231 



the actor did not possess, or does not know of 

 impelling motives. It is difficult, for instance, 

 to understand why Stuart made a wide circuit 

 to the northward in an effort to cross the moun- 

 tains, instead of passing up the Grand Cafion of 

 the Snake, ascending Hoback's River, and 

 crossing thence into the Wind River Valley. 

 He was looking for the trail followed two years 

 previously by Wilson P. Hunt, one of the As- 

 toria partners who had made the overland jour- 

 ney from the Missouri to the Columbia. This 

 trail they believed the most feasible for their 

 purpose. 



Hunt had avoided the Grand Canon of the 

 Snake because he had found the river too tur- 

 bulent for canoes, and his scouts had reported 

 the canon impassable for horses. Stuart with 

 his foot party might easily have ascended the 

 canon, however, and two days' journey would 

 have brought him to Hunt's trail on the Ho- 

 back. But the course he took by a long and 

 roundabout route led him through a particu- 

 larly difficult country, resulting in his men be- 

 ing driven to such extremities that it was once 

 proposed to draw lots to decide who should 

 die that the others might eat. 



John Grey's River, named for an old Hud- 

 son's Bay Company trapper, who spent several 



