latter
stream and its tributaries they wintered.

In this section of the country they fell in with Mr. Thomas McCoy,
a trader who was in the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company. In his
trading operations Mr. McCoy had been unsuccessful and had concluded
to organize a trapping expedition. The inducements which he held out
led Kit Carson and five of his companions to become members of his
party. With him they traveled to Mary's River,[10] from whence reports
had circulated that beaver existed in great abundance. The party
struck upon this stream high up and slowly followed it down to
where it is lost in the Great Basin. Their success here was not
satisfactory; consequently, the party returned to the Big Snake River.
By McCoy's direction the party tarried upon this river for some time
when it was divided. McCoy and a small escort started for Fort Walla
Walla. Kit Carson and the majority of the men took up their line of
march for Fort Hall. While en route, the latter division was subjected
to the greatest privations imaginable. Among the worst of these was
hunger, as their trail led through a barren region of country. For a
short time, they managed to subsist upon a small supply of nutritious
roots which had been provided in advance. This source finally gave
out, when their affairs assumed a most desperate attitude. To keep
from starving, they bled their mules and drank the warm red blood with
avidity, so acutely had the days of fasting sharpened their appetites.
This operation, however could not be repeated without endangering the
lives of their animals. These also were on a short allowance of food,
for the grass was very poor and scanty. The whole party had become
frightfully reduced in strength, and began to think it necessary to
kill some of their animals, which at this time they could but ill
spare. In this terrible condition they met with a band of Indians who
proved to be of a friendly disposition. The party was then only
about four days' journey from Fort Hall. Most unhappily, the Indians
themselves possessed but a scanty supply of provisions, and no more
than their immediate wants required. It was not without considerable
manoeuvering and talk, during which all the skill and Indian
experience possessed by Kit Carson were brought into active
requisition, that the savages were prevailed upon to trade with the
trappers. By the trade the half famished men obtained a fat horse,
which was immediately killed, and on whic