with coarse fur, and are of a light colour. A small species of wolf
about the size of a gray fox was also killed, and proved to be the
animal which we had hitherto mistaken for a fox: there are also many
porcupines, rabbits, and barking squirrels in the neighbourhood.

September 19. We this day enjoyed a cool clear morning, and a wind from
the southeast. We reached at three miles a bluff on the south, and four
miles farther, the lower point of Prospect island, about two and a half
miles in length; opposite to this are high bluffs, about eighty feet
above the water, beyond which are beautiful plains gradually rising as
they recede from the river: these are watered by three streams which
empty near each other; the first is about thirty-five yards wide, the
ground on its sides high and rich, with some timber; the second about
twelve yards wide, but with less timber; the third is nearly of the same
size, and contains more water, but it scatters its waters over the large
timbered plain, and empties itself into the river at three places. These
rivers are called by the French Les trois rivieres des Sioux, the three
Sioux rivers; and as the Sioux generally cross the Missouri at this
place, it is called the Sioux pass of the three rivers. These streams
have the same right of asylum, though in a less degree than Pipestone
creek already mentioned.

Two miles from the island we passed a creek fifteen yards wide; eight
miles further, another twenty yards wide; three miles beyond which, is a
third of eighteen yards width, all on the south side: the second which
passes through a high plain we called Elm creek; to the third we gave
the name of Night creek, having reached it late at night. About a mile
beyond this is a small island on the north side of the river, and is
called Lower island, as it is situated at the commencement of what is
known by the name of the Grand Detour, or Great Bend of the Missouri.