Accordingly,
leaving sixteen men at Snake River, he set out on the 19th of February
with sixteen others on his journey to the caches.
Fording the river, he proceeded to the borders of the deep snow, when he
encamped under the lee of immense piles of burned rock. On the 21st he
was again floundering through the snow, on the great Snake River
plain, where it lay to the depth of thirty inches. It was sufficiently
incrusted to bear a pedestrian, but the poor horses broke through the
crust, and plunged and strained at every step. So lacerated were they by
the ice that it was necessary to change the front every hundred yards,
and put a different one in advance to break the way. The open prairies
were swept by a piercing and biting wind from the northwest. At night,
they had to task their ingenuity to provide shelter and keep from
freezing. In the first place, they dug deep holes in the snow, piling
it up in ramparts to windward as a protection against the blast. Beneath
these they spread buffalo skins, upon which they stretched themselves
in full dress, with caps, cloaks, and moccasins, and covered themselves
with numerous blankets; notwithstanding all which they were often
severely pinched with the cold.
On the 28th of February they arrived on the banks of Godin River. This
stream emerges from the mountains opposite an eastern branch of the
Malade River, running southeast, forms a deep and swift current about
twenty yards wide, passing rapidly through a defile to which it gives
its name, and then enters the great plain where, after meandering about
forty miles, it is finally lost in the region of the Burned Rocks.
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