On the 19th, early in the morning, the Crows, like a Scythian horde, dashed on their little camp, giving the Indian war-whoop, and swept all their horses off in a moment. This misfortune left them in an awful plight. They stood motionless and hopeless. They had now to turn over a new leaf, and from mounted cavalry, to become foot soldiers. They now set about making up each man’s load, and what they could not carry they destroyed on the spot rather than let any of it fall into the hands of their implacable enemies, for their every movement was now watched with an eagle’s eye by the Indians on the heights. To avoid, therefore, the hostile Crows, they had to shun the buffalo, and run the risk of starving or of going right into the jaws of the Blackfeet; but there was no {230} alternative, and to lessen the evil as much as possible they bent their course northward, through a country, in Mr. Stuart’s own words, “more fit for goats than men;” and so closely were they watched by the savages, that they could not venture to separate for the purpose of hunting. They had likewise to keep watch by night, and were every moment in danger of being surrounded or waylaid in the narrow and intricate defiles through which they had to pass. Yet these trying circumstances, when danger stared them in the face, failed to unite them together in heart and hand. Mr. M‘Lellan, with a fool-hardiness and wayward disposition peculiar to himself, left the party in a pet, nor was it till the tenth day afterwards that he was picked up, lying in his cheerless and forlorn encampment, without fire or food, and reduced through hunger, fatigue, and cold to a mere skeleton. Always perverse and stubborn, he had now become peevish and sullen, yet in this torpid and reduced state he revived on seeing his friends, became cheerful, and joyfully joined the party again; but being unable to carry anything, or even to walk, the party halted for two days that he might recruit a little, and then his rifle, pistols, and other things being carried by the others, the party set forward on their journey. They wandered about for five days and nights without a mouthful to eat, and were now reduced to the last extremity; nor had they strength to make use of their rifles, although now and then some deer were seen.