This may have had a beneficial
effect, for though they sat up the greater part of the night,
cooking and cramming, no one suffered any inconvenience.
The next morning the feasting was resumed, and about midday,
feeling somewhat recruited and refreshed, they set out on their
journey with renovated spirits, shaping their course towards a
mountain, the summit of which they saw towering in the east, and
near to which they expected to find the head waters of the
Missouri.
As they proceeded, they continued to see the skeletons of
buffaloes scattered about the plain in every direction, which
showed that there had been much hunting here by the Indians in
the recent season. Further on they crossed a large Indian trail
forming a deep path, about fifteen days old, which went in a
north direction. They concluded it to have been made by some
numerous band of Crows, who had hunted in this country for the
greater part of the summer.
On the following day they forded a stream of considerable
magnitude, with banks clothed with pine trees. Among these they
found the traces of a large Indian camp, which had evidently been
the headquarters of a hunting expedition, from the great
quantities of buffalo bones strewed about the neighborhood.
