July 10th 1806.
Set out early and continued down the S. W. bank of the
river.
N 75 E 24 M. to our encampment in a grove of cottonwood
timber. the latter part of this course for 7 Miles there
is no timber in the river bottom, the other parts of the river
possesses bottoms of the wide leafed cottonwood. much the
greater part of the bottom is untimbered. the bottoms are
wide and level the high praries or plains are also beautiful
level and smooth. great quantities of prickly pear of two
kinds on the plains. the ground is renderd so miry by the
rain which fell yesterday that it is excessively fatiegueing to the
horses to travel. we came 10 miles and halted for dinner
the wind blowing down the river in the fore part of the day
was unfavourable to the hunters. they saw several gangs of
Elk but they having the wind of them ran off. in the evening
the wind set from the West and we fell in with a few elk
of which R. Fields and myself killed 3 one of which swam the
river and fell on the opposit [side] so we therefore lost it's skin
I sent the packhorses on with Serg
t. Gass directing them to halt
and encamp at the first timber which proved to be about 7 M
s.
I retained frazier to assist in skining the Elk. we wer[e] about
this time joined by drawer. a large brown bear swam the river
near where we were and Drewyer shot and killed it. by the
time we butchered the[s]e 2 elk and bar it was near dark we
loaded our horses with the best of the meat and pursued the
party and found them encamped as they had been directed in
the first timber. we did not reach them until 9 P.M. they
informed us that they had seen a very large bear in the plains
which had pursued Serg
t. Gass and Thomson some distance
but their horses enabled them to keep out of it's reach. they
were affraid to fire on the bear least their horses should throw
them as they were unaccustomed to the gun. we killed five
deer 3 Elk and a bear to day saw vast herds of buffaloe in the
evening below us on the river. we he[a]red them bellowing
about us all night. vast assemblages of wolves. saw a large
herd of Elk making down the river. passed a considerable
rapid in medicine river after dark. the river about a hundred
yards wide is deep and in many parts rappid and today has
been much crouded with islands. from our encampment
[16]
down
we know the river and there is no rapids and scarcely any
courant. goosberries are very abundant of the common red
kind and are begining to ripen. no currants on this river.
both species of the prickly pears just in blume.
