From the middle of May to the beginning of September they reside on the headwaters of the Columbia, where they consider themselves perfectly secure from the Pahkees, who have never yet found their way to that retreat.

During this time they subsist chiefly on salmon, and, as that fish disappears on the approach of autumn, they are driven to seek subsistence elsewhere.

They then cross the ridge to the waters of the Missouri, down which they proceed slowly and cautiously, till they are joined near the Three Forks by other bands, either of their own nation or of the Flatheads, with whom they associate against the common enemy.
Being now strong in numbers, they venture to hunt the buffalo in the plains eastward of the mountains, near which they spend the winter, till the return of the salmon invites them to the Columbia.

But such is their terror of the Pahkees, that, so long as they can obtain the scantiest subsistence, they do not leave the interior of the mountains; and, as soon as they have collected a large stock of dried meat, they again retreat, thus alternately obtaining their food at the hazard of their lives, and hiding themselves to consume it.
"In this loose and wandering life they suffer the extremes of want; for two thirds of the year they are forced to live in the mountains, passing whole weeks without meat, and with nothing to eat but a few fish and roots.

Nor can anything be imagined more wretched than their condition at the present time, when the salmon is fast retiring, when roots are becoming scarce, and they have not yet acquired strength to hazard an encounter with their enemies.