CHAPTER XIX.
Worse and worsc—Everything seems to go wrong together.

LTHOUGH the Indians did not maltreat the
A unfortunate strangers who had thus fallen
imto their hands, they made them proceed by forced
marches through the wilderness; and as neither Bar-
ney nor Martin had been of late much used to long
walks, they felt the journey very severely. The old
trader had been accustomed to everything wretched
and unfortunate and uncomfortable from his child-
hood, so he plodded onward in silent indifference.

The country through which they passed became
every day more and more rugged, until at length it
assumed the character of a wild mountainous district.
Sometimes they wound their way in a zigzag manner
up the mountain sides, by paths so narrow that they
could scareely find a foothold. At other times they
descended into narrow valleys where they saw great
numbers of wild animals of various kinds, some of

which the Indians killed for food. After they reached