Page:The Columbia river , or, Scenes and adventures during a residence of six years on the western side of the Rocky Mountains among various tribes of Indians hitherto unknown (Volume 1).djvu/235

 enough to prefer the intoxicating fumes of the Virginian weed to the substantial enjoyment of fat and lean; and candidly confess, that in my choice of horses for the kettle, I wilfully departed from my instructions, by selecting those whose ribs were least visible.

We arrived safely at Spokan, at which place I slept one night, and then continued on for the Flat-heads with eight men and twelve loaded horses. We pursued the same route I had followed the preceding winter with my friend Farnham, through the thick woods along the banks of the Flat-head river; and after suffering great hardships from cold and snow, reached Mr. M'Millan on the 24th of December, with the loss of two horses, which we were obliged to leave in the woods from exhaustion. The fort was about forty miles higher up in an easterly direction than the place Farnham and I had chosen for the log-house. It had a good trading store, a comfortable house for the men, and a snug box for ourselves; all situated on a point formed by the junction of a bold mountain torrent with the Flat-head river, and surrounded on all sides with high and thickly wooded hills, covered with pine, spruce, larch, beech, birch, and cedar. A large band of the Flat-head warriors were