At last Kit Carson and his men reached Fort Hall.  Here they were, of course, kindly received by their countrymen, and all their wants were immediately and abundantly supplied.  This fort was then mainly occupied as a trading post.  As the men were neither sick nor wounded, but only half starved, they found themselves in a few days quite recruited, and ready again for any adventure of enterprise and hardship.  During their sojourn at the fort the men were not idle.  They had their saddles, clothing and moccasins to repair.  All their outfit was in the condition of a ship which has just weathered a storm with loss of anchor, sails, spars, and leaking badly.

Having finished their repairs the party, in good condition, with their mules, set out on a hunting expedition.  They were told that in a fertile region, about fifty miles south of them, large herds of buffaloes had recently been seen.  The weather was delightful.  They were all in good spirits.  It was trapper philosophy never to anticipate evil,—­never to borrow any trouble.  At a rapid pace they marched through a pleasant, luxuriant well watered region, entirely forgetful of past sufferings.

On the evening of the second day, as they were emerging from a forest, there was opened before them a scene of remarkable beauty and grandeur.  Far as the eye could extend towards the south, east and west an undulating prairie spread, with its wilderness of flowers of every gorgeous hue, waving in the evening breeze like the gently heaving ocean.  The sun was just setting in a cloudless sky, illuminating with extraordinary brilliance the enchanting scene.  Here and there in the distance of the boundless plain, a few clumps of trees were scattered, as if nature had arranged them with the special purpose of decorating the Eden-like landscape.  But that which cheered the hunters more than all the other aspects of sublimity and loveliness, were the immense herds, grazing on the apparently limitless prairie.  Many of these herds numbered thousands and yet they appeared but like little spots scattered over the vast expanse.  The hunter had found his paradise; for there were other varieties of game in that luxuriant pasture, elk, deer, antelopes and there was room enough for them all.

Our adventurers immediately selected a spot for their camp on the edge of the forest, near a bubbling spring.  With great alacrity they reared their hut, and arranged all the apparatus for camping, with which they were abundantly supplied.  Poles were cut from the forest, and planted in the open sunny prairie, with ropes of hide stretched upon them.  Upon these ropes they were to suspend strips of buffalo meat to be cured by drying in the sun.  Every thing was prepared over night for the commencement of operations in the early dawn.  The best marksmen were selected for hunters.  They were to go into the prairie, shoot the game and bring it in.  The rest were detailed to cut up the meat and hang it on the ropes to dry.  After it was sufficiently dried, they were to take it down, and pack it closely in bundles for transportation.