University of Virginia Library

Sunday September 22nd. 1805.

Notwithstanding my positive directions to hubble the horses
last evening one of the men neglected to comply. he plead[ed]

ignorance of the order. this neglect however detained us untill
½ after eleven OCk. at which time we renewed our march, our
course being about west. we had proceeded about two and a
half miles when we met Reubin Fields one of our hunters,
whom Capt. Clark had dispatched to meet us with some dryed
fish and roots that he had procured from a band of Indians,
whose lodges were about eight miles in advance. I ordered
the party to halt for the purpose of taking some refreshment.
I divided the fish roots and buries, and was happy to find a
sufficiency to satisfy compleatly all our appetites. Fields also
killed a crow after refreshing ourselves we proceeded to the
village—due West 7-½ Miles where we arrived at 5 OCk in
the afternoon our rout was through lands heavily timbered,
the larger wood entirely pine. the country except the last
3 miles was broken and decending. the pleasure I now felt in
having tryumphed over the rockey Mountains and decending
once more to a level and fertile country where there was every
rational hope of finding a comfortable subsistence for myself
and party can be more readily conceived than expressed, nor
was the flattering prospect of the final success of the expedition
less pleasing. on our approach to the village which consisted
of eighteen lodges most of the women fled to the neighbouring
woods on horseback with their children, a circumstance I did
not expect as Capt. Clark had previously been with them and
informed them of our pacific intentions towards them and also
the time at which we should most probably arrive.[54] the men
seemed but little concerned, and several of them came to meet
us at a short distance from their lodges unarmed.[55]