The interval of comfort and repose which the party had enjoyed in their cabin rendered the renewal of their fatigues intolerable for the first two or three days.  The snow lay deep, and was slightly frozen on the surface, but not sufficiently to bear their weight.  Their feet became sore by breaking through the crust, and their limbs weary by floundering on without a firm foothold.  So exhausted and dispirited were they, that they began to think it would be better to remain and run the risk of being killed by the Indians, than to drag on thus painfully, with the probability of perishing by the way.  Their miserable horse fared no better than themselves, having for the first day or two no other forage than the ends of willow twigs, and the bark of the cottonwood tree.

They all, however, appeared to gain patience and hardihood as they proceeded, and for fourteen days kept steadily on, making a distance of about three hundred miles.

During the last three days of their fortnight’s travel, however, the face of the country changed.  The timber gradually diminished, until they could scarcely find fuel sufficient for culinary purposes.  The game grew more and more scanty, and finally none was to be seen but a few miserable broken-down buffalo bulls, not worth killing.  The snow lay fifteen inches deep, and made the travelling grievously painful and toilsome.  At length they came to an immense plain, where no vestige of timber was to be seen, not a single quadruped to enliven the desolate landscape.  Here, then, their hearts failed them, and they held another consultation.  The width of the river, which was nearly a mile, its extreme shallowness, the frequency of quicksands, and various other characteristics, had at length made them sensible of their errors with respect to it, and they now came to the correct conclusion that they were on the banks of the Platte.  What were they to do?  Pursue its course to the Missouri?  To go on at this season of the year seemed dangerous in the extreme.  There was no prospect of obtaining either food or fuel.  The country was destitute of trees, and though there might be driftwood along the river, it lay too deep beneath the snow for them to find it.

The weather was threatening a change, and a snow-storm on these boundless wastes might prove as fatal as a whirlwind of sand on an Arabian desert.  After much deliberation, it was at length determined to retrace their last three days’ journey of seventy-seven miles, to a place where they had seen a sheltering growth of forest-trees, and where there was an abundance of game.  Here they would once more set up their winter quarters, and await the opening of navigation to launch themselves in canoes.

Accordingly, on the 27th of December they faced about, retraced their steps, and on the 30th regained the part of the river in question.