Scarcity of Food.--Rivers, Lakes, &c.--Accident.--A
Rencontre.--First View of the Rocky Mountains.

On the 17th, the fatigue I had experienced the day before, on horseback,
obliged me to re-embark in my canoe. About eight o'clock, we passed a
little river flowing from the N.W. We perceived, soon after, three
canoes, the persons in which were struggling with their paddles to
overtake us. As we were still pursuing our way, we heard a child's voice
cry out in French--"_arretez donc, arretez donc_"--(stop! stop!). We put
ashore, and the canoes having joined us, we perceived in one of them the
wife and children of a man named _Pierre Dorion_, a hunter, who had been
sent on with a party of eight, under the command of Mr. J. Reed, among
the _Snakes_, to join there the hunters left by Messrs. Hunt and Crooks,
near Fort Henry, and to secure horses and provisions for our journey.
This woman informed us, to our no small dismay, of the tragical fate of
all those who composed that party. She told us that in the month of
January, the hunters being dispersed here and there, setting their traps
for the beaver, Jacob Regner, Gilles Leclerc, and Pierre Dorion, her
husband, had been attacked by the natives. Leclerc, having been mortally
wounded, reached her tent or hut, where he expired in a few minutes,
after having announced to her that her husband had been killed. She
immediately took two horses that were near the lodge, mounted her two
boys upon them, and fled in all haste to the wintering house of Mr.
Reed, which was about five days' march from the spot where her husband
fell. Her horror and disappointment were extreme, when she found the
house--a log cabin--deserted, and on drawing nearer, was soon convinced,
by the traces of blood, that Mr. Reed also had been murdered. No time
was to be lost in lamentations, and she had immediately fled toward the
mountains south of the _Wallawalla_, where, being impeded by the depth
of the snow, she was forced to winter, having killed both the horses to
subsist herself and her children. But at last, finding herself out of
provisions, and the snow beginning to melt, she had crossed the
mountains with her boys, hoping to find some more humane Indians, who
would let her live among them till the boats from the fort below should
be ascending the river in the spring, and so reached the banks of the
Columbia, by the Wallawalla. Here, indeed, the natives had received her
with much hospitality, and i