We went along the main channel which is on the right side, and
after passing nine bends in that direction, three islands and a number
of bayous, reached at the distance of five and a half miles the upper
point of a large island. At noon there was a storm of thunder which
continued about half an hour; after which we proceeded, but as it was
necessary to drag the canoes over the shoals and rapids, made but little
progress. On leaving the island we passed a number of short bends,
several bayous, and one run of water on the right side, and having gone
by four small and two large islands, encamped on a smooth plain to the
left near a few cottonwood trees: our journey by water was just twelve
miles, and four in a direct line. The hunters supplied us with three
deer and a fawn.

Tuesday 13. Very early in the morning captain Lewis resumed the Indian
road, which led him in a western direction, through an open broken
country; on the left was a deep valley at the foot of a high range of
mountains running from southeast to northwest, with their sides better
clad with timber than the hills to which we have been for some time
accustomed, and their tops covered in part with snow. At five miles
distance, after following the long descent of another valley, he reached
a creek about ten yards wide, and on rising the hill beyond it had a
view of a handsome little valley on the left, about a mile in width,
through which they judged, from the appearance of the timber, that some
stream of water most probably passed. On the creek they had just left
were some bushes of the white maple, the sumach of the small species
with the winged rib, and a species of honeysuckle, resembling in its
general appearance and the shape of its leaf the small honeysuckle of
the Missouri, except that it is rather larger, and bears a globular
berry, about the size of a garden pea, of a white colour, and formed of
a soft white mucilaginous substance, in which are several small brown
seeds irregularly scattered without any cell, and enveloped in a smooth
thin pellicle.

They proceeded along a waving plain parallel to this valley for about
four miles, when they discovered two women, a man and some dogs on an
eminence at the distance of a mile before them. The strangers first
viewed them apparently with much attention for a few minutes, and then
two of them sat down as if to await captain Lewis's arrival. He went on
till he reached within about half a mile, then ordered