CHAPTER XLIV.
Route of Mr.Stuart--Dreary Wilds .-- Thirsty Travelling.-A Grove and Streamlet .-- The Blue Mountains .-- A Fertile Plain With Rivulets .-- Sulphur Spring--Route Along Snake River-- Rumors of White Men .-- The Snake and His Horse .-- A Snake Guide.-A Midnight Decampment .-- Unexpected Meeting With Old Comrades--Story of Trappers' Hardships--Salmon Falls--A Great Fishery .-- Mode of Spearing Salmon .-- Arrival at the Caldron Linn .-- State of the Caches .-- New Resolution of the Three Kentucky Trappers.
IN retracing the route which had proved so disastrous to Mr.Hunt's party during the preceding winter, Mr.Stuart had trusted, in the present more favorable season, to find easy travelling and abundant supplies.

On these great wastes and wilds, however, each season has its peculiar hardships.

The travellers had not proceeded far, before they found themselves among naked and arid hills, with a soil composed of sand and clay, baked and brittle, that to all appearance had never been visited by the dews of heaven.
Not a spring, or pool, or running stream was to be seen; the sunburnt country was seamed and cut up by dry ravines, the beds of winter torrents, serving only to balk the hopes of man and beast with the sight of dusty channels, where water had once poured along in floods.
For a long summer day they continued onward without halting, a burning sky above their heads, a parched desert beneath their feet, with just wind enough to raise the light sand from the knolls, and envelop them in stifling clouds.

The sufferings from thirst became intense; a fine young dog, their only companion of the kind, gave out, and expired.

Evening drew on without any prospect of relief, and they were almost reduced to despair, when they descried something that looked like a fringe of forest along the horizon.