ndured. Indeed, two who had been in the rear guard,
taking advantage of their position, had deserted and returned to the
lodges of the Nez Perces. The prospect ahead was enough to stagger the
stoutest heart. They were in the dead of winter. As far as the eye
could reach the wild landscape was wrapped in snow, which was evidently
deepening as they advanced. Over this they would have to toil, with the
icy wind blowing in their faces: their horses might give out through
want of pasturage, and they themselves must expect intervals of horrible
famine like that they had already experienced.

With Captain Bonneville, however, perseverance was a matter of pride;
and, having undertaken this enterprise, nothing could turn him back
until it was accomplished: though he declares that, had he anticipated
the difficulties and sufferings which attended it, he should have
flinched from the undertaking.

Onward, therefore, the little band urged their way, keeping along the
course of a stream called John Day's Creek. The cold was so intense that
they had frequently to dismount and travel on foot, lest they should
freeze in their saddles. The days which at this season are short enough
even in the open prairies, were narrowed to a few hours by the high
mountains, which allowed the travellers but a brief enjoyment of the
cheering rays of the sun. The snow was generally at least twenty inches
in depth, and in many places much more: those who dismounted had to beat
their way with toilsome steps. Eight miles were considered a good day's
journey. The horses were almost famished; for the herbage was covered by
the deep snow, so that they had nothing to subsist upon but scanty wisps
of the dry bunch grass which peered above the surface, and the small
branches and twigs of frozen willows and wormwood.

In this way they urged their slow and painful course to the south down
John Day's Creek, until it lost itself in a swamp. Here they encamped
upon the ice among stiffened willows, where they were obliged to beat
down and clear away the snow to procure pasturage for their horses.

Hence they toiled on to Godin River; so called after an Iroquois hunter
in the service of Sublette, who was murdered there by the Blackfeet.
Many of the features of this remote wilderness are thus named after
scenes of violence and bloodshed that occurred to the early pioneers. It
was an act of filial vengeance on the part of Godin's son Antoine that,
as the reader may rec