first range of the Black mountains, and though it has now only water of
twenty yards width, yet when full it occupies ninety. Just below the
mouth is another village or wintering camp of the Ricaras, composed of
about sixty lodges, built in the same form as those passed yesterday,
with willow and straw mats, baskets and buffaloe-skin canoes remaining
entire in the camp. We proceeded under a gentle breeze from the
southwest: at ten o'clock we saw two Indians on the north side, who told
us they were a part of the lodge of Tartongawaka, or Buffaloe Medicine,
the Teton chief whom we had seen on the twenty-fifth, that they were on
the way to the Ricaras, and begged us for something to eat, which we of
course gave them. At seven and a half miles is a willow island on the
north, and another on the same side five miles beyond it, in the middle
of the river between highlands on both sides. At eighteen and a half
miles is an island called Grouse island, on which are the walls of an
old village; the island has no timber, but is covered with grass and
wild rye, and owes its name to the number of grouse that frequent it. We
then went on till our journey for the day was twenty-two miles: the
country presented the same appearance as usual. In the low timbered
ground near the mouth of the Sawawkawna, we saw the tracks of large
white bear, and on Grouse island killed a female blaireau, and a deer of
the black-tailed species, the largest we have ever seen.

Monday, October 8. We proceeded early with a cool northwest wind, and at
two and a half miles above Grouse island, reached the mouth of a creek
on the south, then a small willow island, which divides the current
equally; and at four and a half miles came to a river on the southern
side where we halted. This river, which our meridian altitude fixes at
45° 39' 5" north latitude, is called by the Ricaras Wetawhoo; it rises
in the Black mountains, and its bed which flows at the mouth over a low
soft slate stone, is one hundred and twenty yards wide, but the water is