Clark's Men Also Had Good Luck
In Hunting, For They Killed Five Deer And One Bighorn.
Neither party
found fresh tracks of Indians, and they were greatly discouraged thereat.
The journal speaks of a beautiful valley, from six to eight miles wide,
where they saw ancient traces of buffalo occupation, but no buffalo.
These animals had now completely disappeared; they were seldom seen
in those mountains.
The journal says of Lewis: -
"He saw an abundance of deer and antelope, and many tracks of elk and bear.
Having killed two deer, they feasted sumptuously, with a dessert of
currants of different colors - two species red, others yellow, deep purple,
and black; to these were added black gooseberries and deep purple
service-berries, somewhat larger than ours, from which they differ also
in color, size, and the superior excellence of their flavor. In the low
grounds of the river were many beaver-dams formed of willow-brush, mud,
and gravel, so closely interwoven that they resist the water perfectly;
some of them were five feet high, and caused the river to overflow several
acres of land."
Meanwhile, the party with the canoes were having a fatiguing time
as they toiled up the river. On the fourth of August, after they
had made only fifteen miles, the journal has this entry: -
"The river is still rapid, and the water, though clear, is very much
obstructed by shoals or ripples at every two hundred or three hundred yards.
At all these places we are obliged to drag the canoes over the stones,
as there is not a sufficient depth of water to float them, and in
the other parts the current obliges us to have recourse to the cord.
But as the brushwood on the banks will not permit us to walk on shore,
we are under the necessity of wading through the river as we drag the boats.
This soon makes our feet tender, and sometimes occasions severe falls
over the slippery stones; and the men, by being constantly wet,
are becoming more feeble.
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