336 EXPEDITION TO THE 



that the combined effects of the two calamities, experienced 

 within the last twenty-four hours, had required a change in 

 our mode of travelling. The navigation of the river had 

 been very slow, since we had advanced but about one hun- 

 dred and thirty miles in six days ; and it threatened to be- 

 come still more tedious on account of the increasing shal- 

 lowness of the water. Our provisions were not sufficient 

 to support so large a party ; and the country being desti- 

 tute of animals, afforded us no supply. The only game 

 killed from the time that the party left the fort were two 

 ducks. Our guide further informed us, that if we conti- 

 nued to ascend the St. Peter in canoes, we should lose much 

 precious time, arrive on Red River after the buffalo had 

 left it, and find it, probably, impossible to reach the head 

 of Lake Superior before the winter season had com- 

 menced ; in which case we should be compelled to winter 

 somewhere west of the lakes. As this comported neither 

 with Major Long's wishes, nor with the instructions which 

 he had received from the War Department, it induced him 

 to relinquish the plan of ascending in canoes, and to send 

 back nine soldiers, retaining but twelve men as a guard, 

 which in the present dispersed state of the Indians pro- 

 mised sufficient protection. By proceeding all in one party 

 on land, much time would necessarily be saved, and the 

 bends of tlie river need not be followed Although this 

 plan did not afford us as good a prospect of becoming ac- 

 quainted with the nature of the country as the mode we 

 had heretofore followed, yet in the present state of our af- 

 fairs it was judged to be the only one that could be adopt- 

 ed with pi'udence ; and as this modification in our manner 

 of travelling required a corresponding change in the ar- 

 rangement of our baggage, we proceeded a few miles 

 higher up, to a fine prairie, where we found good pasture 



