stretched out before them. Only occasionally were there intervales of
grass, and the miserable herbage was saltweed, resembling pennyroyal.
The desponding party looked in vain for some relief from the lifeless
landscape. All game had apparently shunned the dreary, sun-parched
waste, but hunger was now and then appeased by a few fish which they
caught in the streams, or some sun-dried salmon, or a dog given to them
by the kind-hearted Shoshones whose lodges they sometimes came across.

At last the party tired of this weary route. They determined to
leave the banks of the barren Snake River, so, under the guidance
of a Mr. Miller who had previously trapped in that region, they were
conducted across the mountains and out of the country of the dreaded
Blackfeet. Miller soon proved a poor guide, and again the party
became bewildered among rugged hills, unknown streams, and the burned
and grassless prairies.

Finally they arrived on the banks of a river, on which their guide
assured them he had trapped, and to which they gave the name of Miller,
but it was really the Bear River which flows into Great Salt Lake.
They continued along its banks for three days, subsisting very
precariously on fish.

They soon discovered that they were in a dangerous region. One evening,
having camped rather early in the afternoon, they took their
fishing-tackle and prepared to fish for their supper. When they
returned to their camp, they were surprised to see a number of savages
prowling round. They proved to be Crows, whose chief was a giant,
very dark, and looked the rogue that they found him to be.

He ordered some of his warriors to return to their camp, near by,