FROM FORT BENTON TO THE FLATHEAD CAMP. 303 



base, many of them having a perfectly rectangular shape. We crossed, ten miles farther, a fork 

 of the Arrow river, now dry, which takes its rise in the Belt mountains. This butte referred to 

 rises to a height of about four hundred feet above the valley, and is perfectly flat or level on the 

 top ; at its edges are seen the outcropping of a dark gray columnar rock encrusted in many places 

 \vith a white salt. The slopes of this butte have an inclination of seventy-five degrees, and are 

 covered, as also at the base, with cedar and scrub-pine. The grass of this valley passed through, 

 up to noon, we found dry, being buffalo grass; but around the margin of the lakes seen in the 

 valley the grass is green, and exceedingly nutritious. The soil is of a light grayish color, as if 

 baked in the sun, though covered with grass. There are to be seen along the northern side of 

 this valley large beds of rock and salt, alternately. This salt, which I could not examine, but 

 was told by Mr. Rose, is a species of Epsom salts, exceedingly purging in its nature, and at a 

 distance would appear as so many large masses or beds of snow glistening in the sun. We 

 found the valley much cut up with the holes of the badger, one of which the Indians killed. I 

 would here mention that these Indians of the Blackfoot nation had before visited the vicinity of 

 the Flathead camp, with the intention, if possible, to steal the horses of the Flatheads; but not 

 succeeding, they placed themselves under our protection to visit this camp on friendly terms. 

 This instance will show the duplicity to be found at times among the Indians, and especially among 

 the Blackfoot nation. Finding they were unable to succeed as enemies, they were willing to try it 

 as friends, and they knew they were perfectly safe in visiting the camp of their enemy under the 

 protection of the whites. Besides, it is reckoned a coup for them to visit the camp of their 

 enemies, a number of which visits makes a man a chief or brave, in the estimation of his people. 

 Our guide, who was also a Blackfoot Indian, was acting under a promise. He had engaged to 

 conduct us safely to the Flathead camp, to invite the principal men of their nation to accompany 

 us across the Rocky mountains to the village of St. Mary s, and had engaged to conduct us across 

 the Rocky mountains by one of the travelled trails, when he was promised to have a letter to 

 the gentleman in charge of Fort Benton, stating that he had faithfully performed his duty, when 

 he would receive his reward. Had he received it before he had performed his duty, I am con 

 vinced that he would have left me at the end of the first day. 



Unfortunately, this morning I found that the barometer used by Mr. Burr had become unfit for 

 service, which I sorely regretted, since I had anticipated having an excellent barometrical profile 

 over a new and untravelled route. At noon we halted for one and a half hours, when we 

 resumed our journey in the same direction until 4 p. m., when, one of the mules of Mr. Rose 

 breaking down, we halted, after twenty-one miles march, on the east bank of the main stream of 

 the Arrow river, which we found to be a small and tortuous stream, that takes its rise in the 

 rocky buttes of the Belt mountains, and empties into the Missouri twenty-five miles below Fort 

 Benton. Its banks are well wooded, the cotton- wood tree being the most abundant ; the scrub- 

 cedar also occurring, though not abundantly. We found on this river good grass and wood; 

 but the water was hard and brackish. 



The river runs in a general direction nearly north through a very beautiful valley that crossed 

 at right angles the valley through which we had been journeying all day. The valley is lined 

 on each side by high clay bluffs, with occasional out-croppings of a dark-colored rock. Game 

 was exceedingly scarce; prairie dogs being the only living thing seen, save occasionally a wolf or 

 an antelope, which latter would be frightened from their beds at least a mile in advance of us, and 

 soon would be seen bounding off to the mountains that limited our view to the right of the valley. 

 Grass we found to be dry, though highly relished by the animals; the only water seen was the 

 Wk of Arrow river that takes its rise in the Square Butte of the Belt mountains, and a small 

 brook, about two feet wide, that takes its rise from a spring in the bluffs of the valley. We had 

 the fork of Arrow river referred to to our right until we struck the main stream. During this 



o o 



night we were visited by an exceedingly heavy rain, accompanied by much thunder and light 

 ning, which was concentrated in the western portion of the horizon. It rained from 9 to near 



