If by an accident they hear us,
they will most probably retreat to the mountains, mistaking us for their
enemies, who usually attack them on this side." . . . . . . . . .
Captain Clark was now in the lead with a small party, and he came upon
the remains of several Indian camps formed of willow-brush, Traces of
Indians became more plentiful. The journal adds:--
"At the same time Captain Clark observed that the pine trees had been
stripped of their bark about the same season, which our Indian woman
says her countrymen do in order to obtain the sap and the soft parts of
the wood and bark for food. About eleven o'clock he met a herd of
elk and killed two of them; but such was the want of wood in the
neighborhood that he was unable to procure enough to make a fire, and
was therefore obliged to substitute the dung of the buffalo, with which
he cooked his breakfast. They then resumed their course along an old
Indian road. In the afternoon they reached a handsome valley, watered by
a large creek, both of which extended a considerable distance into the
mountain. This they crossed, and during the evening travelled over a
mountainous country covered with sharp fragments of flint rock; these
bruised and cut their feet very much, but were scarcely less troublesome
than the prickly-pear of the open plains, which have now become so
abundant that it is impossible to avoid them, and the thorns are so
strong that they pierce a double sole of dressed deer-skin; the best
resource against them is a sole of buffalo-hide in parchment (that
is, hard dried).
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