i: near this lake were the remains of
forty-three temporary lodges which seem to belong to the Assiniboins,
who are now on the river of the same name. A great number of swan and
geese were also in it, and from this circumstance we named the creek
Goose creek, and the lake by the same name: these geese we observe do
not build their nests on the ground or in sandbars, but in the tops of
lofty cottonwood trees: we saw some elk and buffaloe to-day but at too
great a distance to obtain any of them, though a number of the carcases
of the latter animal are strewed along the shores, having fallen through
the ice, and been swept along when the river broke up. More bald eagles
are seen on this part of the Missouri than we have previously met with;
the small or common hawk, common in most parts of the United States, are
also found here: great quantities of geese are feeding in the prairies,
and one flock of white brant or goose with black wings, and some gray
brant with them pass up river, and from their flight they seem to
proceed much farther to the northwest. We killed two antelopes which
were very lean, and caught last night two beaver: the French hunters who
had procured seven, thinking the neighborhood of the Little Missouri a
convenient hunting ground for that animal, remained behind there: in
the evening we encamped in a beautiful plain on the north thirty feet
above the river, having made twenty-two and a half miles.

Sunday 14. We set off early with pleasant and fair weather: a dog joined
us, which we suppose had strayed from the Assiniboin camp on the lake.
At two and a half miles we passed timbered low grounds and a small
creek: in these low grounds are several uninhabited lodges built with
the boughs of the elm, and the remains of two recent encampments, which
from the hoops of small kegs found in them we judged could belong to
Assiniboins only, as they are the only Missouri Indians who use
spirituous liquors: of these they are so passionately fond that it forms
their chief inducement to visit the British on the Assiniboin, to whom
they barter for kegs of rum their dried and pounded meat, their grease,
and the skins of large and small wolves, and small foxes. The dangerous
exchange is transported to their camps with their friends and relations,
and soon exhausted in brutal intoxication: so far from considering
drunkenness as disgraceful, the women and children are permitted and
invited to share in these excesses with t