Wednesday June 25th. 1806.
last evening the indians entertained us with seting the fir
trees on fire. they have a great number of dry lims near their
bodies which when set on fire creates a very suddon and immence
blaze from bottom to top of those tall trees. they are
a beatifull object in this situation at night. this exhibition
reminded me of a display of fireworks. the natives told us
that their object in seting those trees on fire was to bring fair
weather for our journey. We collected our horses readily and
set out at an early hour this morning. one of our guides
complained of being unwell, a symptom which I did not much
like as such complaints with an Indian is generally the prelude
to his abandoning any enterprize with which he is not well
pleased. we left them at our encampment and they promised
to pursue us in a few hours. at 11. A. M. we arrived at the
branch of hungary creek where we found R. & J. Feilds. they
had not killed anything. here we halted and dined and our
guides overtook us. at this place I met with a plant the root
of which the shoshones eat. it is a small knob root a good
deel in flavor an consistency like the Jerusalem Artichoke.
it has two small oval smooth leaves placed opposite on either
side of the peduncle just above the root. the scape is only
about 4 inches long is round and smooth. the roots of this
plant formed one of those collections of roots which Drewyer
took from the Shoshones last summer on the head of Jeffersons's
river.
[23]
after dinner we continued our rout to hungary
Creek and encamped about one and a half miles below our
encampment of the 16
th. ins
t. the indians continued with us
and I beleive are disposed to be faithfull to their engagement.
I gave the si[c]k indian a buffaloe robe he having no other
covering except his mockersons and a dressed Elkskin without
the hair. Drewyer and Sheilds were sent on this morning
to hungry Creek in surch of their horses which they fortunately
recovered.
