[Lewis:]
Thursday June 19th. 1806.
Our hunters were out very early this morning, they returned
before noon with one deer only. the Fishermen had been more
unsuccessfull, they returned without a single fish and reported
that they could find but few and those they had tryed to take
in vain. they had broke both their giggs which were of indian
fabrication made of bone. I happened to have a pointed peice
of iron in my pouch which answered by cuting in two peices
to renew boath giggs. they took one fish this evening which
proved to be a salmon trout much to our mortification, for we
had hoped that they were the salmon of this spring['s] arrival
and of course fat and fine. these trout are of the red kind
they remain all winter in the upper parts of the rivers and
creeks and are generally poor at this season. At 2 P. M.
J & R Feilds arived with two deer; John Sheilds and LaPage
came with them, they had not succeeded in finding their horses.
late in the evening Frazier reported that my riding horse that
of Cap
t. Clark and his mule had gone on towards the Quawmash
flatts and that he had pursued their tracks on the road
about 2-½ miles, we determined to send out all the hunters
in the morning in order to make a fair experiment of the p[r]act[ica]bility
of our being able to subsist at this place and if
not we shall move the day after to the Quawmash flatts. the
musquetoes have been excessively troublesome to us since
our arrival at this place particularly in the evening. Cruzatte
brought me several large morells which I roasted and eat without
salt pepper or grease in this way I had for the first time
the true taist of the morell which is truly an insippid taistless
food.
[21]
our stock of salt is now exhausted except two quarts
which I have reserved for my tour up Maria's River and that
I left the other day on the mountain.
