woodsmen ahead to note the marks on the trees and to blaze the trail. But first, Drouillard and Shannon will start back immediately, to the Nez Percé grand council, which is now in session, and offer two guns for some guides. They'll join us on the prairie."
This sounded sensible, although everybody did hate to retrace steps. The going down, amidst snow-hidden rocks and timber, was cruel work.
Drouillard and George Shannon were gone for almost a week. When they reappeared they brought three young Nez Percés warriors as guides. Then a quick trip was made. The first day out the guides set fire to the timber, in order, they said, to "make fair weather." They led rapidly. They never missed the trail. Whenever the snow thinned, in spots, there, underfoot, was the trail, plain to be seen—the great Nez Percé Road-to-the-Buffalo, from the west of the mountains to the east. Even Drouillard and Sa-ca-ja-we-a exclaimed with approval of such accurate guiding.
All the old camps of the fall before were passed. The Hungry Creek camp, where Captain Clark had left the horse hung up, and where Peter and Reuben Fields had supped on the horse's head; the camp of September 17, from which Captain Clark had set out ahead to find the Nez Percés; the camp of September 16, where the spotted colt was killed; the camp of September 14, where the black colt was killed.
"Sure, I'm glad we're goin' the other way," re-
