Labiche, one of our best trackers, returned from
a very wide circuit, and informed Captain Clark that he had traced
the horses bending their course rather down the river towards the open
plains, and from their tracks, must have been going very rapidly. All
hopes of recovering them were now abandoned. Nor were the Indians the
only plunderers around our camp; for in the night the wolves or dogs
stole the greater part of the dried meat from the scaffold. The wolves,
which constantly attend the buffalo, were here in great numbers, as this
seemed to be the commencement of the buffalo country. . . .

"At noon the two canoes were finished. They were twenty-eight feet long,
sixteen or eighteen inches deep, and from sixteen to twenty-four inches
wide; and, having lashed them together, everything was ready for setting
out the next day, Gibson having now recovered. Sergeant Pryor was
directed, with Shannon and Windsor, to take the remaining horses to the
Mandans, and if he should find that Mr. Henry (a trading-post agent)
was on the Assiniboin River, to go thither and deliver him a letter, the
object of which was to prevail on the most distinguished chiefs of the
Sioux to accompany him to Washington."

On a large island near the mouth of a creek now known as Canyon Creek,
the party landed to explore an extensive Indian lodge which seems to
have been built for councils, rather than for a place of residence. The
lodge was shaped like a cone, sixty feet in diameter at the base and
tapering towards the top. The poles of which it was constructed were
forty-five feet long. The interior was strangely decorated, the tops of
the poles being ornamented with eagles' feathers, and from the centre
hung a stuffed buffalo-hide. A buffalo's head and other trophies of
the chase were disposed about the wigwam. The valley, as the explorers
descended the river, was very picturesque and wonderful. On the north
side the cliffs were wild and romantic, and these were soon succeeded by
rugged hills, and these, in turn, by open plains on which were descried
herds of buffalo, elk, and wolves. On the twenty-seventh of July, having
reached the Bighorn, one of the largest tributaries of the Yellowstone,
the party have this entry in their journal:--

"They again set out very early, and on leaving the Bighorn took a last
look at the Rocky Mountains, which had been constantly in view from the
first of May. The (Yellowstone) river now widens to the extent of fro