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The difficulty now was to find timber of sufficient size for the construction of canoes, the trees in these high mountain regions being chiefly a scrubbed growth of pines and cedars, aspens, haws, and service-berries, and a small kind of cotton-tree, with a leaf resembling that of the willow. There was a species of large fir, but so full of knots as to endanger the axe in hewing it.

Having killed two deer, they feasted sumptuously, with a dessert of currants of different colors two species red, others yellow, deep purple, and black; to these were added black gooseberries and deep purple service-berries, somewhat larger than ours, from which they differ also in color, size, and the superior excellence of their flavor.

The woods and meadows are full of them, both on the lowlands and mountains huckleberries of many species, salmon-berries, blackberries, raspberries, with service-berries on dry open places, and cranberries in the bogs, sufficient for every bird, beast, and human being in the territory and thousands of tons to spare. The huckleberries are especially abundant.

"Yes, that it is, my friend," returned the other; "the outer sides of the garden are still bare. Did I not, last autumn, see Miss Sophie quite distinctly, when she was gathering service-berries in her little basket? And then, what tricks did she not play? She certainly did not think that I sat here and watched tier pretty gambols!"

This is the species on which the Indians depend most for food, gathering them in large quantities, beating them into a paste, pressing the paste into cakes about an inch thick, and drying them over a slow fire to enrich their winter stores. Salmon-berries and service-berries are preserved in the same way.

They were overjoyed upon discovering the identity of their visitors, saluted them heartily, smoked with them the pipe of peace, and offered such entertainment as they had. They were without food, excepting some indifferent cakes made from service-berries and choke-cherries, dried in the sun.

Just choke-cherry trees, and service-berries, and now and then a little flat filled with cottonwoods and willows familiar trees and bushes that he had known all his six years of life. So the Kid went on and on, over hills or around hills or down along the side of hill. But he did not find the Happy Family, and he did not find the brakes.

With rush and reed, is thatcht the hut it self, Where, besides what is on a smoaky shelf, Ripe service-berries into garlands bound, And savory-bunches with dry'd grapes are found. Such a low cottage Hecale confin'd, Low was her cottage, but sublime her mind. Her bounteous heart, a grateful praise shall crown, And muses make immortal her renown.

We made a fire first, then I dressed my trout while it was burning down to a nice bed of coals. I had brought a frying-pan and a bottle of lard, salt, and buttered bread. We gathered a few service-berries, our trout were soon browned, and with water, clear, and as cold as ice, we had a feast. The quaking aspens are beginning to turn yellow, but no leaves have fallen.

But some cakes made of service-berries and choke-berries dried in the sun were presented to the white men "on which," says Captain Lewis, "we made a hearty meal." Later in the day, however, an Indian invited Captain Lewis into his wigwam and treated him to a small morsel of boiled antelope and a piece of fresh salmon roasted.