hopunnish
country to hurry up the Indians who had promised to accompany them over
the mountains; and, to insure a guide, these men were authorized to
offer a rifle as a reward for any one who would undertake the task. For
the present, it was thought best to return to Quamash flats.

Chapter XXIII -- Crossing the Bitter Root Mountains

Disasters many kept pace with the unhappy explorers on their way back
to Quamash flats after their rebuff at the base of the Bitter Root
Mountains. One of the horses fell down a rough and rocky place, carrying
his rider with him; but fortunately neither horse nor man was killed.
Next, a man, sent ahead to cut down the brush that blocked the path, cut
himself badly on the inside of his thigh and bled copiously. The hunters
sent out for game returned empty-handed. The fishermen caught no fish,
but broke the two Indian gigs, or contrivances for catching fish, with
which they had been provided. The stock of salt had given out, the
bulk of their supply having been left on the mountain. Several large
mushrooms were brought in by Cruzatte, but these were eaten without
pepper, salt, or any kind of grease,--"a very tasteless, insipid food,"
as the journal says. To crown all, the mosquitoes were pestilential in
their numbers and venom.

Nevertheless, the leaders of the expedition were determined to press on
and pass the Bitter Root Mountains as soon as a slight rest at Quamash
flats should be had. If they should tarry until the snows melted from
the trail, they would be too late to reach the United States that winter
and would be compelled to pass the next winter at some camp high up on
the Missouri, as they had passed one winter at Fort Mandan, on their way
out. This is the course of argument which Captain Lewis and Clark took
to persuade each other as to the best way out of their difficulties:--

"The snows have formed a hard, coarse bed without crust, on which the
horses walk safely without slipping; the chief difficulty, therefore, is
to find the road. In this we may be assisted by the circumstance that,
though generally ten feet in depth, the snow has been thrown off by the
thick and spreading branches of the trees, and from round the trunk;
while the warmth of the trunk itself, acquired by the reflection of the
sun, or communicated by natural heat of the earth, which is never frozen
under these masses, has dissolved the snow so much that immediately at
the roots its depth is not more