Before daybreak, however, a well-known voice reached his ears from the opposite shore.

It was his repentant spouse, who had been wandering the woods all night in quest of the party, and had at length descried it by its fires.

A boat was despatched for her, the interesting family was once more united, and Mr.Hunt now flattered himself that his perplexities with Pierre Dorion were at an end.
Bad weather, very heavy rains, and an unusually early rise in the Missouri, rendered the ascent of the river toilsome, slow, and dangerous.

The rise of the Missouri does not generally take place until the month of May or June: the present swelling of the river must have been caused by a freshet in some of its more southern branches.

It could not have been the great annual flood, as the higher branches must still have been ice-bound.
And here we cannot but pause, to notice the admirable arrangement of nature, by which the annual swellings of the various great rivers which empty themselves into the Mississippi, have been made to precede each other at considerable intervals.