"A quarter of a mile beyond this river a creek falls in on
the south, to which, on account of its distance from the mouth
of the Missouri, we gave the name of Two-thousand-mile creek.
It is a bold stream with a bed thirty yards wide.
At three and one-half miles above Porcupine River, we reached
some high timber on the north, and camped just above an old
channel of the river, which is now dry. We saw vast quantities
of buffalo, elk, deer, - principally of the long-tailed kind, -
antelope, beaver, geese, ducks, brant, and some swan.
The porcupines too are numerous, and so careless and clumsy
that we can approach very near without disturbing them, as they
are feeding on the young willows. Toward evening we also found
for the first time the nest of a goose among some driftwood,
all that we had hitherto seen being on the top of a broken
tree on the forks, invariably from fifteen to twenty or more
feet in height."
"Next day," May 4, says the journal, "we passed some old Indian hunting-camps,
one of which consisted of two large lodges, fortified with a circular
fence twenty or thirty feet in diameter, made of timber laid horizontally,
the beams overlying each other to the height of five feet, and covered
with the trunks and limbs of trees that have drifted down the river.
The lodges themselves are formed by three or more strong sticks
about the size of a man's leg or arm and twelve feet long, which are
attached at the top by a withe of small willows, and spread out so as
to form at the base a circle of ten to fourteen feet in diameter.
Against these are placed pieces of driftwood and fallen timber,
usually in three ranges, one on the other; the interstices are covered
with leaves, bark, and straw, so as to form a conical figure about
ten feet high, with a small aperture in one side for the door.
It is, however, at best a very imperfect shelter against the inclemencies
of the seasons."
Wolves were very abundant along the route of the explorers, the most
numerous species being the common kind, now known as the coyote
(pronounced kyote), and named by science the canis latrans.
These animals are cowardly and sly creatures, of an intermediate size
between the fox and dog, very delicately formed, fleet and active.
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