into the stream.  After all this is done, the place is abandoned for the night, and, if all be right next morning, is not visited again, until there be a necessity for reopening the cache.  Four men are sufficient, in this way, to conceal the amount of three tons weight of merchandise in the course of two days.  Nine caches were required to contain the goods and baggage which Mr. Hunt found it necessary to leave at this place.

Three days had been thus employed since the departure of the several detachments, when that of Mr. Crooks unexpectedly made its appearance.  A momentary joy was diffused through the camp, for they supposed succor to be at hand.  It was soon dispelled.  Mr. Crooks and his companions had been completely disheartened by this retrograde march through a bleak and barren country; and had found, computing from their progress and the accumulating difficulties besetting every step, that it would be impossible to reach Henry’s Fort and return to the main body in the course of the winter.  They had determined, therefore, to rejoin their comrades, and share their lot.

One avenue of hope was thus closed upon the anxious sojourners at the Caldron Linn; their main expectation of relief was now from the two parties under Reed and M’Lellan, which had proceeded down the river; for, as to Mr. M’Kenzie’s detachment, which had struck across the plains, they thought it would have sufficient difficulty in struggling forward through the trackless wilderness.  For five days they continued to support themselves by trapping and fishing.  Some fish of tolerable size were speared at night by the light of cedar torches; others, that were very small, were caught in nets with fine meshes.  The product of their fishing, however, was very scanty.  Their trapping was also precarious; and the tails and bellies of the beavers were dried and put by for the journey.

At length two of the companions of Mr. Reed returned, and were hailed with the most anxious eagerness.  Their report served but to increase the general despondency.  They had followed Mr. Reed for some distance below the point to which Mr. Hunt had explored, but had met with no Indians from whom to obtain information and relief.  The river still presented the same furious aspect, brawling and boiling along a narrow and rugged channel, between rocks that rose like walls.

A lingering hope, which had been indulged by some of the party, of proceeding by water, was now finally given up:  the long and terrific strait of the river set all further progress at defiance, and in their disgust at the place, and their vexation at the disasters sustained there, they gave it the indignant, though not very decorous, appellation of the Devil’s Scuttle Hole.

CHAPTER XXXIV.