EXPLORATION FROM A. D. 1852 To A. D. 1857. 69 
Crossing the Muscle Shell (Yellowstone) he travelled southeast for eighty miles, where he 
met the Flathead (Selish) Indians, and then returned to the Muscle Shell, (Yellowstone.) 
Travelling up this stream to where a river comes in from the northwest, (probably Shields' 
river,) he ascended this stream, and crossing the Belt mountains, struck a stream ee 
Smith’s river of Lewis and Clarke) running into the Missouri. 
Following down the valley of this river for a day, they left it, crossed another mountain range, 
and reached and forded the Missouri. Continuing west, Lieutenant Mullan crossed the divide 
between the Missouri and Columbia, through the Hell-Gate Pass, at the source of the Little 
Blackfoot Fork of the Hell-Gate river. Following down the latter stream he proceeded to the 
Bitter Root or St. Mary’s river, and along it to Fort Owen or Mission of St. Mary. 
Lieutenant Saxton arrived at Fort Benton on the 12th of September. He had been charged 
with establishing a depot of supplies at St. Mary’s village, and left the Dalles on the 18th of 
July, 1853. His party consisted of Lieutenants Robert McFeely and Richard Arnold, Messrs. 
Arnold and Hoyt, and forty-nine enlisted men, packers, &c. They were provided with barome- 
ters, compasses, sextants, and chronometers. The distances were estimated. The party 
followed the emigrant trail near the Columbia to Walla-Walla. On the 30th July they left 
that place and travelled in a northeast direction, crossing Snake river at the mouth of the Pelouse 
in canoes. 
At the Spokane river their only mercurial barometer was idt and observations were con- 
tinued with an aneroid. They travelled up the Spokane river to the Cœur d' Alene river, and 
up this to the Cœur d’ Alene prairie, where they struck north to Clarke's Fork. Their route 
was then up Clarke's Fork to near the place where it is formed by the union of the Bitter Root 
river with the Flathead river. Here the road leaves the stream a short distance and passes 
over to the Flathead river. Lieutenant Saxton left this latter stream at the mouth of Jocko 
river, and crossed over to the Bitter Root Fork, at the mouth of Hell-Gate river, and thence 
proceeded along it to the Mission of St. Mary. 
At St. Mary the party separated, Lieutenant Arnold being left in charge of the depot. On 
the 2d of September Lieutenant McFeely, with nineteen men, returned to the Dalles by the 
Nez Percés trail, which ascends the Bitter Root to near its head, then turns west through very 
difficult. mountains to the sources of the Kooskoosky. Lieutenant McFeely made no map of 
his route. 
lise نس‎ proceeded by the way of Blackfoot river across the mountains, through the 
Blackfoot or Cadotte’s Pass, to Fort Benton. Lieutenant Saxton made a sketch of his route, 
but it was subsequently mapped by the main party under Lieutenant Donelson. On the 
22d September Lieutenant Saxton started with a party in a flat boat for St. Louis, but took no 
further topographical sketches. 
Governor Stevens found it necessary, from the information received from Lieutenant Saxton, 
to abandon his wagons at Fort Benton and push rapidly forward. 
Lieutenant Donelson was placed in charge of the main party; Lieutenant Grover was directed 
to survey the Missouri from the Great Falls to the mouth of Milk river; and Mr. Doty was left 
at Fort Benton to take meteorological observations. Governor Stevens himself went in advance 
to St. Mary’s by the route over which Lieutenant Saxton had come. 
Lieutenant Donelson moved from Fort Benton on the 16th September. Travelling ina south- 
west direction, he crossed the ridge which separates the waters of the Atlantic from those of 
the Pacific, through the pass Governor Stevens calls Cadotte’s Pass, and proceeded down the 
