as you shall have decided upon your route. I shall await your arrival before beginning, because the pack horses cross without difficulty, and will suffice to carry their provisions. As regards your route the Virginia party continues in full force, and although the secret motive of their policy seems to me not above suspicion of partiality, it nevertheless appears to me an additional reason for acting with double caution in a matter of this consequence, so as to have ample answers for all their clamors, if any accident happens, which they would not fail to attribute to the choice of a fresh route. Captain Patterson, who set out two days after Captain Ward with a party of 13 men to reconnoitre the fort, has returned with them without accomplishing anything. He tried to cross the two mountains in a direct line with the fort, but he found Lawrell Hill impassible, and the different reports agree in the fact that there is no other pass to be found except the Indian Path reconnoitred by Captain Ward. The guide Dunning speaks of a gap he crossed 16 years ago, but no one knows this gap, which he declares he found in 'Hunting
