A herd happened to be on their
way across the river.
Such was the multitude of these animals that,
though the river, including an island over which they passed,
was a mile wide, the herd stretched, as thickly as they could swim,
from one side to the other, and the party was obliged to stop for an hour.
They consoled themselves for the delay by killing four of the herd;
and then having proceeded for the distance of forty-five miles [in
all to-day] to an island, below which two other herds of buffalo,
as numerous as the first, soon after crossed the river."
Again, on the very next day, we find this entry: -
"The river was now about a mile wide, less rapid, and more
divided by islands, and bars of sand and mud, than heretofore;
the low grounds, too, were more extensive, and contained a greater
quantity of cottonwood, ash, and willows. On the northwest was a low,
level plain, and on the southeast some rugged hills, on which we saw,
without being able to approach them, some bighorns. Buffalo and elk,
as well as their pursuers, the wolves, were in great numbers.
On each side of the river there were several dry beds of streams,
but the only one of any considerable size was one to which they
gave the name of Ibex River, on the right, about thirty yards wide,
and sixteen miles from their encampment of the preceding night.
The bear, which had given them so much trouble at the head of
the Missouri, they found equally fierce here.
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