Captain Bonneville himself, when he had arranged his permanent camp the previous autumn on the Portneuf, a branch of the Snake in south-eastern Idaho, set out December 25, 1833, with only three companions to visit the Columbia River region. Crossing the barren valley of Snake River about on the route which by this time may be called the usual one, for besides Hunt and Stuart, and recently Wyeth, the Hudson Bay Company men often passed that way—the Oregon Trail in fact,—through a thick layer of snow, he arrived at last, without any unpleasant encounter with the bands of Amerinds he met, in the valley of the Grande Ronde, on the eastern foot of the splendid Blue Mountains. This fair basin was free from snow, and was obviously the place from which to make an extensive and thorough reconnaissance before attempting to cross the Blue range, whose mighty summits lay between him and the Columbia. But instead of doing this Bonneville wandered on and presently was back on Snake River amid a wild array of rocks and canyons, where, after desperate ventures, he was forced to fall back. He tried to surmount the range and failed. Farther back they tried again and butted their way across with the usual starvation and fatigue incident to advancing without proper investigation. At last they floundered down to a tributary of the Snake where a solitary Nez Perce was encountered who speedily led them to the camp of his friendly tribe. Here their troubles for the moment were over, and Bonneville gained the chief's high favour by curing his daughter of an illness by means of a dose of gunpowder dissolved in water. On March 4th they reached the Columbia at Fort Walla Walla, a post of the Hudson Bay Company, which, in the Columbia River region, had entire control of the trade, as Bonneville, as well as Wyeth, soon discovered. Pambrune, the agent, was cordial and treated them well as long as they were in a measure his guests, but when they wanted provisions with which to return he declined to sell any, on the ground that it was not fair to his company to encourage competing traders. He advised them to return in company with one of his men about to cross the Blue range by the regular trail on a visit to the upper tribes of the Nez Perces, but Bonneville declined and once more butted his way haphazard across the great ridges, arriving at last on the Snake after much unnecessary privation. At one point a horse approached too near an icy precipice, and sliding down more than two thousand feet was literally dashed to pieces, as they found on going to the spot to secure the carcass for food. By May 12, 1834, he was again at the Portneuf, where he found his camp removed to the Blackfoot River not far away. [Illustration: A Wilderness Waggon Road. Photograph by F. S. Dellenbaugh.]