Hunger now began to cause more uneasiness than the apprehensions of surrounding enemies.  After marching a few miles they encamped at the foot of a mountain, in hopes of finding buffalo.  It was not until the next day that they discovered a pair of fine bulls on the edge of the plain, among rocks and ravines.  Having now been two days and a half without a mouthful of food, they took especial care that these animals should not escape them.  While some of the surest marksmen advanced cautiously with their rifles into the rough ground, four of the best mounted horsemen took their stations in the plain, to run the bulls down should they only be maimed.

The buffalo were wounded and set off in headlong flight.  The half-famished horses were too weak to overtake them on the frozen ground, but succeeded in driving them on the ice, where they slipped and fell, and were easily dispatched.  The hunters loaded themselves with beef for present and future supply, and then returned and encamped at the last nights’s fire.  Here they passed the remainder of the day, cooking and eating with a voracity proportioned to previous starvation, forgetting in the hearty revel of the moment the certain dangers with which they were environed.

The cravings of hunger being satisfied, they now began to debate about their further progress.  The men were much disheartened by the hardships they had already endured.  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.