By the thirtieth of April the expedition was equipped with
twenty-three horses, most of which were young and excellent animals;
but many of them were afflicted with sore backs.
All Indians are cruel
masters and hard riders, and their saddles are so rudely made that it
is almost impossible for an Indian's horse to be free from scars;
yet they continue to ride after the animal's back is scarified
in the most horrible manner.
The expedition was now in what we know as Walla Walla County, Washington,
and they were travelling along the river Walla Walla, leaving
the Columbia, which has here a general direction of northerly.
The course of the party was northeast, their objective point
being that where Waitesburg is now built, near the junction
of Coppie Creek and the Touchet River. They were in a region
of wood in plenty, and for the first time since leaving the
Long Narrows, or Dalles, they had as much fuel as they needed.
On the Touchet, accordingly, they camped for the sake of having
a comfortable night; the nights were cold, and a good fire
by which to sleep was an attraction not easily resisted.
The journal, April 30, has this entry: -
"We were soon supplied by Drewyer with a beaver and an otter,
of which we took only a part of the beaver, and gave the rest
to the Indians. The otter is a favorite food, though much inferior,
at least in our estimation, to the dog, which they will not eat.
The horse is seldom eaten, and never except when absolute necessity
compels them, as the only alternative to dying of hunger.
This fastidiousness does not, however, seem to proceed so much from
any dislike to the food, as from attachment to the animal itself;
for many of them eat very heartily of the horse-beef which
we give them."
On the first day of May, having travelled forty miles from
their camp near the mouth of the Walla Walla, they camped
between two points at which are now situated the two towns
of Prescott, on the south, and Waitesburg, on the north.
Their journal says:
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