A GRATEFUL CONTRAST. 299 



tions to navigation occur. One owes its origin, at two 

 hundred and fifty miles from the mouth of the river, 

 to a ridge of limestone rock, which occasions a short 

 rapid and a fall of about eight feet. The second 

 obstruction is met with at the entrance to the vast 

 canon at the mountains, where a portage of ten or 

 twelve miles becomes necessary. Through the moun- 

 tains it flows deep and silent, creeping along by the 

 bases of the immense cliffs, and affording a good water- 

 way to the canoes of the hardy employe's of the Fur 

 Company. 



The shade of approaching night was already descend- 

 ing on the landscape when the hunters directed their 

 canoe to th^e bank. They felt in unusually good spirits, 

 and the young men awoke the echoes with their shouts 

 and boat-songs. The easy motion of the canoe, the 

 facility with which it could be steered and navigated, 

 offered a grateful contrast with the lumbering raft to 

 which they had been condemned for so long. Pierre's 

 pipe, too, for some time empty, was now in full blow, 

 while old Jake's jaws wagged (as he said) as fast as a 

 beaver's tail in flood-time. Tea, that cherished bever- 

 age in the Western wilderness, sugar, salt, some pre- 

 served vegetables, and biscuits, had been added to 

 their stores, and it therefore was little wonder that the 

 party felt elated. 



Those of my readers who have actually experienced 

 what it is to run short of these supplies on a journey 

 through the wild West will sympathize with the 



