They welcomed them, therefore,
to their tents, set food before them; and entertained them to the best
of their power.
They had been successful in their hunt, and their camp was full of
jerked buffalo meat, all of the choicest kind, and extremely fat. Mr.
Hunt purchased enough of them, in addition to what had been killed
and cured by his own hunters, to load all the horses excepting those
reserved for the partners and the wife of Pierre Dorion. He found, also,
a few beaver skins in their camp, for which he paid liberally, as an
inducement to them to hunt for more; informing them that some of his
party intended to live among the mountains, and trade with the native
hunters for their peltries. The poor Snakes soon comprehended the
advantages thus held out to them, and promised to exert themselves to
procure a quantity of beaver skins for future traffic. Being now well
supplied with provisions, Mr. Hunt broke up his encampment on the 24th
of September, and continued on to the west. A march of fifteen miles,
over a mountain ridge, brought them to a stream about fifty feet in
width, which Hoback, one of their guides, who had trapped about the
neighborhood when in the service of Mr. Henry, recognized for one of the
head waters of the Columbia. The travellers hailed it with delight,
as the first stream they had encountered tending toward their point of
destination.
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