length, lying in the middle of the river, and
separated by a small channel, at its extremity, from another above it,
on which we encamped. These two islands are called Mud islands. The
river is shallow during this day's course, and is falling a little.
The elk and buffaloe are in great abundance, but the deer have become
scarce.

September 11, Tuesday. At six and a half miles we passed the upper
extremity of an island on the south; four miles beyond which is another
on the same side of the river; and about a quarter of a mile distant we
visited a large village of the barking-squirrel. It was situated on a
gentle declivity, and covered a space of nine hundred and seventy yards
long, and eight hundred yards wide; we killed four of them. We then
resumed our course, and during five and a half miles passed two islands
on the north, and then encamped at the distance of sixteen miles, on the
south side of the river, and just above a small run. The morning had
been cloudy, but in the afternoon it began raining, with a high
northwest wind, which continued during the greater part of the night.
The country seen to-day consists of narrow strips of lowland, rising
into uneven grounds, which are succeeded, at the distance of three
miles, by rich and level plains, but without any timber. The river
itself is wide, and crowded with sandbars. Elk, deer, squirrels, a
pelican, and a very large porcupine, were our game this day; some foxes
too were seen, but not caught.

In the morning we observed a man riding on horseback down towards the
boat, and we were much pleased to find that it was George Shannon, one
of our party, for whose safety we had been very uneasy. Our two horses
having strayed from us on the 26th of August, he was sent to search for
them. After he had found them he attempted to rejoin us, but seeing some
other tracks, which must have been those of Indians, and which he
mistook for our own, he concluded that we were ahead, and had been for
sixteen days following the bank of the river above us. During the first
four days he exhausted his bullets, and was then nearly starved, being
obliged to subsist, for twelve days, on a few grapes, and a rabbit which
he killed by making use of a hard piece of stick for a ball. One of his
horses gave out, and was left behind; the other he kept as a last
resource for food. Despairing of overtaking us, he was returning down
the river, in hopes of meeting some other boat; and was on the point