these creature comforts the more highly on account of the surrounding
desolation and the dangerous proximity of the Crows.

The snow which had fallen in the night made it late in the morning
before the party loaded their solitary packhorse, and resumed their
march. They had not gone far before the trail of the Crows, which
they were following, changed its direction, and bore to the north
of east. They had already begun to feel themselves on dangerous
ground, in travelling it, as they might be descried by scouts or spies
of that race of Ishmaelites, whose predatory life required them to
be constantly on the alert. On seeing the trail turn so much to
the north, therefore, they abandoned it, and kept on their course
to the southeast for eighteen miles, through a beautiful undulating
country, having the main chain of mountains on the left, and a
considerable elevated ridge on the right.

That evening they encamped on the banks of a small stream, in the
open prairie. The northeast wind was keen and cutting, and as they
had nothing but a scanty growth of sage-brush wherewith to make a fire,
they wrapped themselves in their blankets at an early hour. In the
course of the evening M'Lellan, who had now regained his strength,
killed a buffalo, but it was some distance from the camp, and they
postponed supplying themselves from its carcass until morning.

The next day the cold continued, accompanied by snow. They set
forward on their bleak and toilsome way, keeping to the northeast,
toward the lofty summit of a mountain which it was necessary for them
to cross. Before they reached its base they passed another large
trail, a little to the right of a point of the mountain. This they
supposed to have been made by another band of Crows.