out to pass the portage and halted for dinner
at eight miles distance near a little stream. The axletrees of our
carriage, which had been made of an old mast, and the cottonwood tongues
broke before we came there: but we renewed them with the timber of the
sweet willow, which lasted till within half a mile of our intended camp,
when the tongues gave way and we were obliged to take as much baggage as
we could carry on our backs down to the river, where we formed an
encampment in a small grove of timber opposite to the Whitebear islands.
Here the banks on both sides of the river are handsome, level, and
extensive; that near our camp is not more than two feet above the
surface of the water. The river is about eight hundred yards wide just
above these islands, ten feet deep in most places, and with a very
gentle current. The plains however on this part of the river are not so
fertile as those from the mouth of the Muscleshell and thence downwards;
there is much more stone on the sides of the hills and on the broken
lands than is to be found lower down. We saw in the plains vast
quantities of buffaloe, a number of small birds, and the large brown
curlew, which is now sitting, and lays its eggs, which are of a pale
blue with black-specks, on the ground without any nest. There is also a
species of lark much resembling the bird called the oldfield lark, with
a yellow breast and a black spot on the croup; though it differs from
the latter in having its tail formed of feathers of an unequal length
and pointed; the beak too is somewhat longer and more curved, and the
note differs considerably. The prickly pear annoyed us very much to-day
by sticking through our moccasins. As soon as we had kindled our fires
we examined the meat which captain Clarke had left here, but found that
the greater part of it had been taken by the wolves.

Sunday, 23. After we had brought up the canoe and baggage captain Clarke
went down to the camp at Portage creek, where four of the men had been
left with the Indian woman. Captain Lewis during the morning prepared
the camp, and in the afternoon went down in a canoe to Medicine river to
look after the three men who had been sent thither to hunt on the 19th,
and from whom nothing had as yet been heard. He went up the river about
half a mile and then walked along on the right bank, hallooing as he
went, till at the distance of five miles he found one of them who had
fixed his camp on the opposite bank, wher