The Bitterroot Range Summary and Analysis

The explorers are now at the edge of the Bitterroot Mountains. They wait for mountain snow to melt by keeping an eye on water level. In order to traverse the range, the captains devise a strategy that allows the horses to feed in between portages. They soon find the padding formed by the snow on the ground makes it much easier for the horses to travel; indeed, they do not need to walk across a broken terrain filled with debris, rocks and timber. Still, the road is not free of obstacles and problems abound. Private Potts is injured by his own knife and bleeds heavily from a split vein in his inner thigh. Colter and his horse tumble and fall down a steep hill, rolling over each other several times; luckily, they both escape injury and are...