All Hopes Of Recovering Them Were Now Abandoned.
Nor Were The Indians The Only Plunderers Around Our Camp;
For In The Night The Wolves Or Dogs Stole The Greater Part Of
The Dried Meat From The Scaffold.
The wolves, which constantly
attend the buffalo, were here in great numbers, as this seemed
to be the commencement of the buffalo country.
. . .
"At noon the two canoes were finished. They were twenty-eight
feet long, sixteen or eighteen inches deep, and from sixteen
to twenty-four inches wide; and, having lashed them together,
everything was ready for setting out the next day, Gibson having
now recovered. Sergeant Pryor was directed, with Shannon
and Windsor, to take the remaining horses to the Mandans,
and if he should find that Mr. Henry [a trading-post agent] was
on the Assiniboin River, to go thither and deliver him a letter,
the object of which was to prevail on the most distinguished
chiefs of the Sioux to accompany him to Washington."
On a large island near the mouth of a creek now known as
Canyon Creek, the party landed to explore an extensive Indian
lodge which seems to have been built for councils, rather than
for a place of residence. The lodge was shaped like a cone,
sixty feet in diameter at the base and tapering towards the top.
The poles of which it was constructed were forty-five feet long.
The interior was strangely decorated, the tops of the poles being
ornamented with eagles' feathers, and from the centre hung a stuffed
buffalo-hide.
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