Thursday June 27th 1805.
The party returned early this morning for the remaining
canoe and baggage; Whitehouse was not quite well this
morning I therefore detained him and about 10 A.M. set him
at work with Frazier sewing the skins together for the boat;
Shields and gass continued the operation of shaving and fiting
the horizontall bars of wood in the sections of the boat; the
timber is so crooked and indifferent that they make but little
progress, for myself I continued to act the part of cook in
order to keep all hands employed. some Elk came near our
camp and we killed 2 of them. at 1 P.M. a cloud arrose to
the S.W. and shortly after came on attended with violent
Thunder Lightning and hail[3]
&c. (see notes on diary of the
weather for June). soon after this storm was over Drewyer
and J. Fields returned. they were about 4 miles above us
during the storm, the hail was of no uncommon size where
they were. They had killed 9 Elk and three bear during
their absence; one of the bear was the largest by far that we
have yet seen; the skin appear[ed] to me to be as large as a
common ox. while hunting they saw a thick brushey bottom
on the bank of the river where from the tracks along shore
they suspected that there were bare concealed; they therefore
landed without making any nois and climbed a leaning tree
and placed themselves on it's branches about 20 feet above the
ground, when thus securely fixed they gave a [w]hoop and
this large bear instantly rushed forward to the place from
whence he had heard the human voice issue, when he arrived
at the tree he made a short paus and Drewyer shot him in the
head. it is worthy of remark that these bear never climb.
the fore feet of this bear measured nine inches across and the
hind feet eleven and 3/4 in length exclusive of the tallons and
seven inches in width. a bear came within thirty yards of our
camp last night and eat up about thirty weight of buffaloe suit
which was hanging on a pole. my dog seems to be in a constant
state of alarm with these bear and keeps barking all night.
soon after the storm this evening the water on this side of the
river became of a deep crimson colour which I p[r]esume proceeded
from some stream above and on this side. there is a
kind of soft red stone in the bluffs and bottoms of the gullies
in this neighbourhood which forms this colouring matter.
At
the lower camp. Cap
t. Clark completed a draught of the river
with the cou[r]ses and distances from the entrance of the Missouri
to F. Mandan, which we intend depositing here in order
to guard against accedents. Serg
t. Pryor is somewhat better
this morning. at 4 P.M. the party returned from the upper
camp; Capt. C. gave them a drink of grog; they prepared for
the labour of the next day. soon after the party returned it
began to rain accompanyed by some hail and continued a short
time; a second shower fell late in the evening accompanyed
by a high wind from N.W. the mangled carcases of several
buffaloe pass down the river today which had no doubt perished
in the falls.
