constructed, the heavy baggage was drawn backward and forward until the road was beaten, when they desisted from their fatiguing labor.  The night turned out clear and cold, and by morning, their road was incrusted with ice sufficiently strong for their purpose.  They now set out on their icy turnpike, and got on well enough, excepting that now and then a horse would sidle out of the track, and immediately sink up to the neck.  Then came on toil and difficulty, and they would be obliged to haul up the floundering animal with ropes.  One, more unlucky than the rest, after repeated falls, had to be abandoned in the snow.  Notwithstanding these repeated delays, they succeeded, before the sun had acquired sufficient power to thaw the snow, in getting all the rest of their horses safely to the other side of the mountain.

Their difficulties and dangers, however, were not yet at an end.  They had now to descend, and the whole surface of the snow was glazed with ice.  It was necessary; therefore, to wait until the warmth of the sun should melt the glassy crust of sleet, and give them a foothold in the yielding snow.  They had a frightful warning of the danger of any movement while the sleet remained.  A wild young mare, in her restlessness, strayed to the edge of a declivity.  One slip was fatal to her; she lost her balance, careered with headlong velocity down the slippery side of the mountain for more than two thousand feet, and was dashed to pieces at the bottom.  When the travellers afterward sought the carcass to cut it up for food, they found it torn and mangled in the most horrible manner.

It was quite late in the evening before the party descended to the ultimate skirts of the snow.  Here they planted large logs below them to prevent their sliding down, and encamped for the night.  The next day they succeeded in bringing down their baggage to the encampment; then packing all up regularly, and loading their horses, they once more set out briskly and cheerfully, and in the course of the following day succeeded in getting to a grassy region.

Here their Nez Perce guides declared that all the difficulties of the mountains were at an end, and their course was plain and simple, and needed no further guidance; they asked leave, therefore, to return home.  This was readily granted, with many thanks and presents for their faithful services.  They took a long farewell smoke with their white friends, after which they mounted their horses and set off, exchanging many farewells and kind wishes.

On the following day, Captain Bonneville completed his journey down the mountain, and encamped on the borders of Snake River, where he found the grass in great abundance and eight inches in height.  In this neighborhood, he saw on the rocky banks of the river several prismoids of basaltes, rising to the height of fifty or sixty feet.