In attempting to navigate this awful passage, one of the canoes was completely destroyed, and one man drowned, while his comrades barely escaped with their lives. Further progress by water was evidently impossible. The hope of shooting rapidly down to the sea had again to be abandoned; and, thoroughly disheartened, the travelers prepared to strike across country again, with a view to reaching the banks of the Columbia lower down.
Exploring parties were sent out in different directions to ascertain the best route; all of the baggage which could possibly be spared was buried in caches; and early in October the march was begun across a dry and trackless wilderness, tenanted only by a few wretched Shoshones, who fled at the approach of the white men.
Toward the end of November a large encampment of Snakes was reached, where provisions and some really trustworthy information as to the route to the coast were obtained; but it was bitterly cold, and the sufferings of the party between the Indian camp and the Columbia were extreme. Not until the 21st January did the long-sought waters of the great stream of the West come in sight, and the transport of the weary travelers at this happy conclusion of their long wanderings may be imagined.
The spot at which the Columbia had at last been struck was a little below the junction of its two great branches, the Lewis and Clarke, in about N. lat. 46° 8´, W. long. 118° 50´. Its banks were dotted with the miserable huts of a wretched horde of Indians called Akai-chies, who wore nothing but the undressed skins of animals, and lived by fishing, scudding up and down the Columbia in rude canoes of pine logs hollowed out by fire.
From these Akai-chies Hunt received the first tidings of his comrades of the sea expedition; but fortunately, perhaps, for him, the simple savages only knew of the presence of white men at the mouth of their river, and could tell nothing of the disasters which had overtaken them. Eager to join their friends, the traders now pushed on along the Columbia as rapidly as possible; and at a little village somewhat further down, they heard not only of the massacre on board the Tonquin, but of a plot for their own destruction. A party of braves said some wandering savages had arranged to attack the camp at night and carry off all the horses. With Hunt, to be forewarned was to be forearmed, and the precautions taken prevented any second tragedy; but it was with a sinking heart that he led his men in the last stage of his awful journey. If the rumor of the massacre on the Tonquin were true, there was of course little hope that the few survivors of
