h Curate. They consent to tarry awhile at his house.

Winter gradually wore away--the snow-girt hills and valleys were
divested of their mantle of gloom, and were clothed with vestments of
green, spangled with crimson, blue, and gold flowers, the perfume of
which called forth the soft hum of bees as they flew from flower to
flower, extracting the honied dews. Far from the sunny South the birds
came with their glad, cheering voices, giving forth a welcome to the
dawning spring. The winter had been long and tedious, cheered only with
the certainty that they knew which way they had to travel in order to
reach the haunts of civilization; and though they had kept the hunger
wolf at bay, their strength gradually gave out under their unhealthy
diet, and when they were ready to travel, they were in a pitiful
condition to endure its fatigues. Their horses were even worse off than
themselves. Worn with privation to skeletons, they were drooping and
spiritless; and had not the wanderers used great exertion to collect
the young grass for them, they would have perished, for they were too
languid to crop it themselves.

Slowly at first new vigor became infused into them, and in a few weeks'
delay, and the spring rains being over, their horses gathered strength,
and they determined to proceed on their journey. Upon mature
deliberation they considered it prudent to cross the mountains to the
Pacific coast, and then send word to Mr. Duncan where they were, as
they did not deem themselves strong or well enough prepared to make the
distance back to their friends. Whirlwind heard the decision, and then
told them he thought it best that one or more of them should return to
Mr. Duncan, and as he could be spared best, offered to go, if either
Jones or Cole would guide him on the road; "for," said the chief,
"Duncan and the rest can come to you better than you can go to them, in
your present condition."

"Always generous," said Jane, with gratitude beaming in her eye, for in
truth she felt heart-sick at the thought of placing a still greater
distance between herself and those her heart yearned to see.

"It is nothing," said the chief. "Whirlwind would give his life, if it
would save the antelope a pang of sorrow or grief."

"I think Duncan would as soon settle here as in Oregon, his original
destination," said the trapper; "and if we can so arrange it as to make
it safe for us, I think myself it would be a better plan, than for all
of u