502 FROM HEADWATERS OF THE MISSOURI TO DALLES OF THE COLUMBIA. 



There are some signs of beaver on this stream, but not many. There is not enough willow 

 and cotton-wood about to please them. 



January 14. This morning the storm had ceased, but it remained extremely cold, and a slight 

 breeze was blowing from the northeast. Since yesterday morning we have used snow-shoes, 

 and, though the snow is not over a foot deep, find it easier travelling with than without them. 

 The dogs, too, travel better in a snow-shoe track than in a single foot trail. Neither game nor 

 any signs of game, except a few pheasants tracks, have been seen since crossing the dividing 

 ridge. 



At the end of about eighteen miles we camped in an old Indian lodge, constructed of poles 

 about four inches thick and twenty feet long, set up so as to form a conical structure. On the 

 outside, to the height of about five feet, it was covered wiih bark and thatched with pine boughs. 

 The fact of the top being left open, as well as of its being very strongly built, makes it probable 

 that it was built by some war party of Blackfeet in making or returning from a predatory excur 

 sion upon the Flatheads. This is the route often taken by them in the summer, though they 

 sometimes pursue a shorter and more southern one. In the winter they don t often make descents 

 of this kind, on account of the difficulty of taking off stolen horses, but turn their attention more 

 particularly to the Crow country. 



The morning of the 15th was the coldest of the winter thus far. At sunrise the thermometer 

 stood 3S below zero. This intensely cold weather is not very disagreeable to travel in, though 

 inconvenient. One must take the precaution to rub his nose and ears once in a while, otherwise 

 they get frosted without giving the least warning. Every particle, too, of moisture in the breath 

 collects on the beard, and encases the lower part of the face in a shell of solid ice about half an 

 inch thick, which it takes a long time to pick off after camping. Sometimes I had my mouth 

 frozen open, and sometimes shut, according to the position it happened to be kept in for half an 

 hour at a time. But in camp a little more temperate weather is much preferable. As it is now, 

 the dogs crowd around the fire with the most uncompromising pertinacity till we get to bed and 

 asleep, when they pile in upon us ; and if one is kicked off he makes war upon some smaller 

 dog, who, being displaced, turns out his next inferior, and so on, keeping the camp in a continual 

 howl till they all get settled again. This occurs so often in the night as to be very annoying. 



Soon after leaving camp, the mountain which had heretofore receded so far from the stream as 

 to leave a narrow interval of level bottom-land along it, closed in upon the water-course and 

 made it necessary for us to pick our way for the most part upon the side-hills or take to the ice. 



The latter seemed preferable, but the stream was so crooked, it is doubtful if we made much 

 by it. The current is rapid, and there are many air-holes in the ice, about which otter- tracks 

 are very numerous. This animal has a peculiar method of locomotion. On the ice or hard snow 

 he invariably runs about ten yards, more or less, and then slides as far as his momentum will 

 carry him. 



After travelling about sixteen miles we camped in a point of timber in a bend of the river, 

 where some cotton-wood was intermixed with the pine, and here, as is generally found to be the 

 case wherever there is cotton-wood, were works of the beaver. 



One tree they had felled was two feet in diameter at the section. About three miles from last 

 camp we crossed the track of a wood buffalo; his stride, when walking, was about a yard. 

 This animal differs from the buffalo of the plains in being much larger, wilder, and in preferring 

 a wooded to a prairie country. They are very scarce in this latitude, but are said to be more 

 plenty farther north, in the Saskachawan country. General depth of snow to-day, ten inches. 



January 16. Travelling about the same as yesterday, but the snow seems to diminish slightly 

 as we go west. Continued on the river till about 2 p. m. to-day, when we again took to the 

 prairie, where the mountains open out a little, and by that means cut off a big bend which was 

 about ten miles across. Some grouse were seen to-day for the first, time west of the divide. 



