y the cactus spines on the prairie, and by the stones
and sand of the river bed while dragging the boats against the current;
but all these trials, labors, and risks were only enough to give zest to
their exploration of the unknown land. At the Great Falls of the
Missouri they halted, and were enraptured with their beauty and majesty;
and here, as everywhere, they found the game so abundant that they lived
in plenty. As they journeyed up-stream through the bright summer
weather, though they worked hard, it was work of a kind which was but a
long holiday. At nightfall they camped by the boats on the river bank.
Each day some of the party spent in hunting, either along the river
bottoms through the groves of cottonwoods with shimmering, rustling
leaves, or away from the river where the sunny prairies stretched into
seas of brown grass, or where groups of rugged hills stood, fantastic in
color and outline, and with stunted pines growing on the sides of their
steep ravines. The only real suffering was that which occasionally
befell someone who got lost, and was out for days at a time, until he
exhausted all his powder and lead before finding the party.

Crossing the Mountains.

Fall had nearly come when they reached the head-waters of the Missouri.
The end of the holiday-time was at hand, for they had before them the
labor of crossing the great mountains so as to strike the head-waters of
the Columbia. Their success at this point depended somewhat upon the
Indian wife of the Frenchman who had joined them at Mandan. She had been
captured from one of the Rocky Mountains tribes and they relied on her
as interpreter. Partly through her aid, and partly by their own
exertions, they were able to find, and make friends with, a band of
wandering Shoshones, from whom they got horses. Having cached their
boats and most of their goods they started westward through the
forest-clad passes of the Rockies; before this they had wandered and
explored in several directions through the mountains and the foot-hills.
The open country had been left behind, and with it the time of plenty.
In the mountain forests the game was far less abundant than on the
plains and far harder to kill; though on the tops of the high peaks
there was one new game animal, the white antelope-goat, which they did
not see, though the Indians brought them hides. The work was hard, and
the party suffered much from toil and hunger, living largely on their
horses, befor