plain, hoping to
find abundance.

The sun had far advanced, and they had become faint and weary, when
they came to a stream which was filled with excellent fish, from which,
with some berries and roots, they made a plentiful repast. While
despatching this, deer came to the water to drink, and a fine doe was
shot by the trapper, much to their satisfaction. Cutting it up, they
shouldered it, and pursued their way. At nightfall they halted much
exhausted, and had the savages then found them, they would have fallen
an easy prey. But as they saw nothing of them they hoped they had
relinquished the pursuit.

The next and the next day, they found themselves too sore and lame to
move, and the third attempting to travel, they proceeded about three
miles, when they gave out, building a bough hut by a clear spring of
water, and resolved to stop until better fitted for travelling. No
traces of Indians were visible, and they now found their greatest foes
were beasts of prey, with which it seemed as if this part of the forest
was filled. They managed, however, to spend three weeks without
sustaining any serious injury from them, although they nightly prowled
around their camp.

The days now began to shorten perceptibly, and the nights to lengthen,
and the disagreeable truth forced itself upon them that the summer was
waning, and they were as far, for aught they knew, as ever, from
attaining the sole object of their lives,--their lost friends. Crossing
the plain which extended many miles, they came to another range of
hills which was so barren that they endeavored to avoid crossing it by
going around them, and with this object, followed them down two day's
journey, when they found the hills decreased to half their former
height, and assuming a more fertile appearance, so they started to go
over them. On arriving at the summit a scene of grandeur met their
vision, although it appalled the stoutest hearts. Before them,
stretching away in the distance and rising until its summit, capped
with snow, pierced the clouds, a range of mountains lay--a formidable
barrier over which they knew they ought not to go--and then came the
conviction that they had wandered to the foot of the great barrier that
separated the Pacific from the vast unexplored sandy desert, and the
snowy peaks that rose before them were those of the Sierra Nevada. Now
they were more certain of their whereabouts than they had been before;
for, though they had never seen t