t,
powder, and tools. This would at once lighten the other boats, and give
them the crew which had been employed on board the pirogue."

On the tenth of June, the weather being fair and pleasant, they dried
all their baggage and merchandise and secreted them in places of
deposits, called caches, as follows:--

"These deposits--or caches, as they are called by the Missouri
traders--are very common, particularly among those who deal with the
Sioux, as the skins and merchandise will keep perfectly sound for years,
and are protected from robbery. Our cache was built in the usual manner.
In the high plain on the north side of the Missouri, and forty yards
from a steep bluff, we chose a dry situation, and then, describing a
small circle of about twenty inches diameter, removed the sod as gently
and carefully as possible: the hole was then sunk perpendicularly for
a foot deep. It was now worked gradually wider as it descended, till at
length it became six or seven feet deep, shaped nearly like a kettle,
or the lower part of a large still with the bottom somewhat sunk at the
centre. As the earth was dug it was handed up in a vessel, and carefully
laid on a skin or cloth, in which it was carried away and thrown into
the river, so as to leave no trace of it. A floor of three or four
inches in thickness was then made of dry sticks, on which was placed a
hide perfectly dry. The goods, being well aired and dried, were laid on
this floor, and prevented from touching the wall by other dried sticks,
as the merchandise was stowed away. When the hole was nearly full, a
skin was laid over the goods, and on this earth was thrown and beaten
down, until, with the addition of the sod first removed, the whole
was on a level with the ground, and there remained not the slightest
appearance of an excavation. In addition to this, we made another of
smaller dimensions, in which we placed all the baggage, some powder, and
our blacksmith's tools, having previously repaired such of the tools as
we carry with us that require mending. To guard against accident, we had
two parcelss of lead and powder in the two places. The red pirogue was
drawn up on the middle of a small island, at the entrance of Maria's
River, and secured, by being fastened to the trees, from the effects of
any floods. We now took another observation of the meridian altitude of
the sun, and found that the mean latitude of Maria's River, as deduced
from three observations, is 49'0 25'