Louisiana and Aaron Burr 353 



treated by the Indians, and kept in good health and 

 spirits; the journals frequently mention the fondness 

 the men showed for dancing, although without part- 

 ners of the opposite sex. Yet they suffered much 

 from the extreme cold, and at times from hunger, for 

 it was hard to hunt in the winter weather, and the 

 game was thin and poor. Generally game could be 

 killed in a day's hunt from the fort ; but occasionally 

 small parties of hunters went off for a trip of sev- 

 eral days, ana returned laden with meat ; in one case 

 they killed thirty-two deer, eleven elk, and a buffalo; 

 in another forty deer, sixteen elk, and three buffalo ; 

 thirty-six deer and fourteen elk, etc. The buffalo 

 remaining in the neighborhood during the winter 

 were mostly old bulls, too lean to eat; and as the 

 snows came on most of the antelope left for the 

 rugged country further west, swimming the Mis- 

 souri in great bands. Before the bitter weather be- 

 gan the explorers were much interested by the meth- 

 ods of the Indians in hunting, especially when they 

 surrounded and slaughtered bands of buffalo on 

 horseback; and by the curious pens, with huge V- 

 shaped wings, into which they drove antelope. 



In the spring of 1805 Lewis and Clark again 

 started westward, first sending down-stream ten of 

 their companions, to carry home the notes of their 

 trip so far, and a few valuable specimens. The party 

 that started westward numbered thirty-two adults, 

 all told ; for one sergeant had died, and two or three 

 persons had volunteered at the Mandan villages, in- 

 cluding a rather worthless French "squaw-man," 



