THE MISSOURI RIVER JOURNALS 485 



They trotted off again, stopping often, but after a while 

 disappeared ; we saw them again some hundreds of yards 

 farther on, when, becoming suddenly alarmed, they 

 bounded off until out of sight. They did not trot or run 

 irregularly as our Virginian Deer does, and their color 

 was of a brownish cast, whilst our common Deer at this 

 season is red. Could we have gone ashore, we might in 

 all probability have killed one or two of them. We 

 stopped to cut wood on the opposite side of the river, 

 where we went on shore, and there saw many tracks of 

 Deer, Elk, Wolves, and Turkeys. In attempting to cross 

 a muddy place to shoot at some Yellow-headed Troupials 

 that were abundant, I found myself almost mired, and 

 returned with difficulty. We only shot a Blackburnian 

 Warbler, a Yellow-winged ditto, and a few Finches. 

 We have seen more Geese than usual as well as Mal- 

 lards and Wood Ducks. This afternoon the weather 

 cleared up, and a while before sunset we passed under 

 Wood's Bluffs, 1 so called because a man of that name 

 fell overboard from his boat while drunk. We saw 

 there many Bank Swallows, and afterwards we came in 

 view of the Blackbird Hill, 2 where the famous Indian 



1 Wood's Bluff has long ceased to be known by this name, but there is no 

 doubt from what Audubon next says of Blackbird Hill, that the bluff in 

 question is that on the west or right bank of the river, at and near Decatur, 

 Burt Co., Neb. ; the line between Burt and Blackbird counties cuts through 

 the bluff, leaving most of it in the latter county. See Lewis and Clark, ed. 

 of 1893, p. 71, date of Aug. to, 1804, where " a cliff of yellow stone on the 

 left" is mentioned. This is Wood's Bluff; the situation is 750 miles up 

 the river by the Commission Charts. E. C. 



2 Blackbird Hill. "Aug. n [1804]. ... We halted on the south side for 

 the purpose of examining a spot where one of the great chiefs of the Mahas 

 [Omahas], named Blackbird, who died about four years ago, of the small- 

 pox, was buried. A hill of yellow soft sandstone rises from the river in 

 bluffs of various heights, till it ends in a knoll about 300 feet above the 

 water ; on the top of this a mound, of twelve feet diameter at the base, 

 and six feet high, is raised over the body of the deceased king, a pole 

 about eight feet high is fixed in the centre, on which we placed a white flag, 

 bordered with red, blue, and white. Blackbird seems to have been a person 



