“Oh, the blessed summer rain! How it cooled the parching air and arid earth, and revived the drooping spirits of poor dear daddie, who is growing hollow-eyed and thin, like the cattle! “We find no game, and nothing for the stock to eat but some willows.” * * * * * “Yonder,” said Captain Ranger, in an excited tone, “are the falls of Salmon River. Make a note of them, Jean!” The dilapidated wagons were halted on a great plateau overlooking a rapid river, spanned by a mighty ledge of rocks, over which a great torrent of foamy-white water rolled and surged, glistening in the sunshine with great schools of female salmon in quest of spawning-ground, followed by the male contingent, fierce of aspect and in fighting mood, ready to destroy one another or anything else that might impede their progress. Indians were camped in great numbers below the bluffs, the women drying the fish for winter use, and the men bartering the produce of their skill with lance and spear for such articles of food and apparel as the depleted stores of the wanderers could spare. “August 7. We travelled eighteen miles to-day. At ten o’clock we found a little plat of dry bunchgrass, and halted for an hour to allow the stock to graze. It was well we did, for to-night we find no grass at all. The river is over a mile from camp, and we are compelled to carry water all that distance for domestic use. We don’t use very much.” For many miles the road continued through a rocky canyon, where the way was so perilous that the locked wagon-wheels had to be held in place by men on the upper side of the grade to prevent the wagons from tumbling down the bluffs into the raging current far below. The entries in Jean’s journal were interrupted at this time by a serious siege of toothache; and for this reason we find, under date of August 10 and 11, in Captain Ranger’s painstaking chirography, the following entries:— “We travelled about eight miles and again came to Snake River. The weather has been insufferably hot; and, as our weak and famished cattle were unable to go on, we were compelled to halt and await the coming of a breeze. “The general face of the country is barren in the extreme. No vegetation is in sight except the ever abounding sagebrush. Gnarled, old, dwarfed, and shaggy, this seemingly boundless waste of sage subsists without apparent moisture; and for no conceivable purpose it lives on and on forever, staring stolidly at the sun by day and keeping vigil with the moon and stars by night.” On the 12th of August Jean made the following entry: “We reached the banks of the river every few miles to-day, and camped near it at night. We find here no grass, game, or fuel; but, thank God, there is plenty of water.