426 Life of Audubon* 



" June 2. We have left St Pierre and are going on up 

 the river, deeper and deeper in the wilderness. We 

 passed the Cheyenne River, which is quite a large 

 stream." 



Audubon hired a hunter named Alexis Bouibarde at 

 St, Pierre to accompany him to the Yellow-stone River, 

 and thus describes him : ' He is a first-rate hunter, pow- 

 erfully built, is a half-breed, and wears his hair loose 

 about his head and shoulders, as I formerly did. . . .' 



" I am now astonished at the poverty of the bluffs 

 we pass : there are no more of the beautiful limestone 

 formations which we saw below, but they all appear to 

 be poor and crumbling clay, dry and hard now, but soft 

 and sticky whenever it rains. The cedars in the ravines, 

 which below were fine and thrifty, are generally dead or 

 dying, probably owing to their long inundation. To-day 

 we have made sixty miles ; the country is much poorer 

 than any we have passed below, and the sand-bars are 

 much more intricate. 



" June 4. The country we have seen to-day is a little 

 better than what we saw yesterday. We passed the old 

 Riccaree village, where General Ashley was beaten by 

 the Indians, and lost eighteen of his men, with the very 

 weapons and ammunition he had sold the Indians, 

 against the remonstrances of his friends and the inter- 

 preter. It is said that it proved fortunate for him, for he 

 turned his course in another direction, where he pur- 

 chased one hundred packs of beaver-skins for a mere song. 



" Passed the Square Hills, so called because they are 

 more level and less rounded than the majority of the 

 hills. From the boat the country looks as if we were get- 

 ting above the line of vegetation ; the flowers are scarce, 

 and the oaks have hardly any leaves on them. We are 

 now sixteen miles below the Mandan village, and hope 

 to reach there to-morrow. 



