and to read.
Leaving the frontier of Missouri in May, 1843, and often diverging
from his route for the sake of expanding his field of observation,
he had arrived in the tide-water region of Columbia in the month of
November; and had then completed the whole service which his orders
embraced. He might then have returned upon his tracks, or been brought
home by sea, or hunted the most pleasant path for getting back; and if
he had been a routine officer, satisfied with fulfilling an order, he
would have done so. Not so the young explorer, who held his diploma
from nature, and not from the United States Military Academy. He was
at Fort Vancouver, guest of the hospitable Dr. McLaughlin, Governor of
the British Hudson Bay Fur Company; and obtained from him all possible
information upon his intended line of return--faithfully given, but
which proved to be disastrously erroneous in its leading and
governing feature. A southeast route to cross the great unknown region
diagonally through its heart (making a line from the Lower Columbia to
the Upper Colorado of the Gulf of California), was his line of return;
twenty-five men (the same who had come with him from the United
States) and a hundred horses were his equipment; and the commencement
of winter the time of starting--all without a guide, relying
upon their guns for support; and, in the last resort, upon their
horses--such as should give out! for one that could carry a man, or a
pack, could not be spared for food.

"All the maps up to that time had shown this region traversed from
east to west--from the base of the Rocky Mountains to the Bay of San
Francisco--by a great river called the _Buena Ventura_: which may be
translated, the _Good Chance_. Governor McLaughlin believed in the
existence of this river, and made out a conjectural manuscript map to
show its place and course. Fremont believed in it, and his plan was to
reach it before the dead of winter, and then hybernate upon it. As a
great river he knew that it must have some rich bottoms, covered with
wood and grass, where the wild animals would collect and shelter,
when the snows and freezing winds drove them from the plains; and
with these animals to live on, and grass for the horses, and wood for
fires, he expected to avoid suffering, if not to enjoy comfort, during
his solitary sojourn in that remote and profound wilderness.

"He proceeded--soon encountered deep snows which impeded progress upon
the highlands--desce