They took leave of their comrades and started off on their several courses with stout hearts and cheerful countenances; though these lonely cruisings into a wild and hostile wilderness seem to the uninitiated equivalent to being cast adrift in the ship's yawl in the midst of the ocean.
Of the perils that attend the lonely trapper, the reader will have sufficient proof, when he comes, in the after part of this work, to learn the hard fortunes of these poor fellows in the course of their wild peregrinations.
The trappers had not long departed, when two Snake Indians wandered into the camp.

When they perceived that the strangers were fabricating canoes, they shook their heads and gave them to understand that the river was not navigable.

Their information, however, was scoffed at by some of the party, who were obstinately bent on embarkation, but was confirmed by the exploring party, who returned after several days' absence.

They had kept along the river with great difficulty for two days, and found it a narrow, crooked, turbulent stream, confined in a rocky channel, with many rapids, and occasionally overhung with precipices.

From the summit of one of these they had caught a bird's-eye view of its boisterous career for a great distance through the heart of the mountain, with impending rocks and cliffs.