CHAPTER XXVII.
Indian Trail .-- Rough Mountain Travelling .-- Sufferings From Hunger and Thirst--Powder River .-- Game in Abundance.-A Hunter's Paradise .-- Mountain Peak Seen at a Great Distance .-- One of the Bighorn Chain .-- Rocky Mountains .-- Extent .-- Appearance .-- Height.-The Great American Desert .-- Various Characteristics of the Mountains .-- Indian Superstitions Concerning Them .-- Land of Souls .-- Towns of the Free and Generous Spirits--Happy Hunting Grounds.
FOR the two following days, the travellers pursued a westerly course for thirty-four miles along a ridge of country dividing the tributary waters of the Missouri and the Yellowstone.

As landmarks they guided themselves by the summits of the far distant mountains, which they supposed to belong to the Bighorn chain.

They were gradually rising into a higher temperature, for the weather was cold for the season, with a sharp frost in the night, and ice of an eighth of an inch in thickness.
On the twenty-second of August, early in the day, they came upon the trail of a numerous band.

Rose and the other hunters examined the foot-prints with great attention, and determined it to be the trail of a party of Crows, returning from an annual trading visit to the Mandans.
As this trail afforded more commodious travelling, they immediately struck into it, and followed it for two days.

It led them over rough hills, and through broken gullies, during which time they suffered great fatigue from the ruggedness of the country.