Scaffolds were everywhere erected, and immense
quantities of fish drying upon them. At this season of the year,
however, the salmon are extremely poor, and the travellers needed their
keen sauce of hunger to give them a relish.
In some places the shores were completely covered with a stratum of dead
salmon, exhausted in ascending the river, or destroyed at the falls; the
fetid odor of which tainted the air.
It was not until the travellers reached the head-waters of the Portneuf
that they really found themselves in a region of abundance. Here the
buffaloes were in immense herds; and here they remained for three days,
slaying and cooking, and feasting, and indemnifying themselves by an
enormous carnival, for a long and hungry Lent. Their horses, too, found
good pasturage, and enjoyed a little rest after a severe spell of hard
travelling.
During this period, two horsemen arrived at the camp, who proved to be
messengers sent express for supplies from Montero's party; which had
been sent to beat up the Crow country and the Black Hills, and to winter
on the Arkansas. They reported that all was well with the party, but
that they had not been able to accomplish the whole of their mission,
and were still in the Crow country, where they should remain until
joined by Captain Bonneville in the spring. The captain retained the
messengers with him until the 17th of November, when, having reached the
caches on Bear River, and procured thence the required supplies, he sent
them back to their party; appointing a rendezvous toward the last of
June following, on the forks of Wind River Valley, in the Crow country.
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