While at this village, the Nez Perce guide had held consultations with some of the inhabitants as to the mountain tract the party were about to traverse.  He now began to wear an anxious aspect, and to indulge in gloomy forebodings.  The snow, he had been told, lay to a great depth in the passes of the mountains, and difficulties would increase as he proceeded.  He begged Captain Bonneville, therefore, to travel very slowly, so as to keep the horses in strength and spirit for the hard times they would have to encounter.  The captain surrendered the regulation of the march entirely to his discretion, and pushed on in the advance, amusing himself with hunting, so as generally to kill a deer or two in the course of the day, and arriving, before the rest of the party, at the spot designated by the guide for the evening’s encampment.

In the meantime, the others plodded on at the heels of the guide, accompanied by that merry vagabond, She-wee-she.  The primitive garb worn by this droll left all his nether man exposed to the biting blasts of the mountains.  Still his wit was never frozen, nor his sunshiny temper beclouded; and his innumerable antics and practical jokes, while they quickened the circulation of his own blood, kept his companions in high good-humor.

So passed the first day after the departure from the patriarch’s.  The second day commenced in the same manner; the captain in the advance, the rest of the party following on slowly.  She-wee-she, for the greater part of the time, trudged on foot over the snow, keeping himself warm by hard exercise, and all kinds of crazy capers.  In the height of his foolery, the patriarchal colt, which, unbroken to the saddle, was suffered to follow on at large, happened to come within his reach.  In a moment, he was on his back, snapping his fingers, and yelping with delight.  The colt, unused to such a burden, and half wild by nature, fell to prancing and rearing and snorting and plunging and kicking; and, at length, set off full speed over the most dangerous ground.  As the route led generally along the steep and craggy sides of the hills, both horse and horseman were constantly in danger, and more than once had a hairbreadth escape from deadly peril.  Nothing, however, could daunt this madcap savage.  He stuck to the colt like a plaister [sic], up ridges, down gullies; whooping and yelling with the wildest glee.  Never did beggar on horseback display more headlong horsemanship.  His companions followed him with their eyes, sometimes laughing, sometimes holding in their breath at his vagaries, until they saw the colt make a sudden plunge or start, and pitch his unlucky rider headlong over a precipice.  There was a general cry of horror, and all hastened to the spot.  They found the poor fellow lying among the rocks below, sadly bruised and mangled.  It was almost a miracle that he had escaped with life.  Even in this condition, his merry spirit was not entirely quelled, and he summoned