78 NARRATIVE OF 1853. 
Le Bombard to the fort for flour, sugar, and a slight indulgence for all hands. The evening 
was spent in studying maps, dictating for the journal, reviewing the ground passed over, and in 
regard to future plans. Le Bombard had not returned, and no persons came out from the fort. 
This indicates pretty clearly, that our guide’s estimate of distance was again out of the way. 
August 1.—We were aroused by the arrival of Le Bombard and two voyageurs about 4 o’ clock, 
they having spent all night on the prairie. Donelson came out to meet us; Grover also; and 
reported it at least ten miles to Fort Union. They brought us news from Fort Union of the 
death of sapper White, by the accidental discharge of his gun in his own hands. Made an easy 
march for about twelve miles over rolling prairie. Boutineau came out to meet us; afterwards 
Osgood and Graham. 
Two miles out, at junction of beaten road, the line was formed, I taking my horse for the 
first time since our anticipated meeting with the Sioux. About half a mile further we came in 
sight of Missouri river, and the whole party gave three cheers as its beautiful bluff banks, 
dotted with timber, came in view. Ав we rounded the hill cutting off view of Fort Union, 
Grover came up, and was received with three cheers. On the coming out of Lieutenant Don- 
elson and Mr. Denig, in charge of the post, I ordered a volley of thé small arms of our com- 
mand, to express admiration of his first arrival. This was answered by a salute of 13 guns. 
We pitched camp 163 miles from the camp of last night, and soon after there was an assem 
bling of the whole party at my tent. I congratulated them on the zealous performance of their 
duty, gave them a cordial invitation to go on, and whatever their determination, even should 
еу leave us here, promised them an honorable discharge. АП seemed desirous of going on, 
. and not one availed himself of the opportunity to leave the expedition. 
By the great vigilance exercised on the march the animals had been constantly improving, 
gaining flesh and becoming cured of sores; so that, though we started from the Mississippi 
with forty disabled animals, all but one were serviceable on our arrival at Fort Union. 
LIEUTENANT GROVER'S TRIP FROM PIKE LAKE. 
Lieutenant Grover, on leaving us at Pike lake on the 25th June to pursue a more southerly 
route to Fort Union, crossed the two forks of the Chippewa river, and fifteen miles south of 
the route of the main train, where he found them each of about the same size, viz: thirty yards 
wide and six feet deep, with unwooded shores, sandy bottom, and a velocity of about four miles 
an hour. After passing the second (Pomme de Terre river) no stream is met with as far as 
Lake Traverse, 47 miles in a direct line. 
The prairie gradually changes its character and becomes by degrees less rolling, until after 
going fourteen miles and passing the Moose Island lakes it becomes almost a dead level, 
quite soft, and in some places marshy, without a tree or twig in sight the whole distance of 33 
miles to the foot of Lake Traverse. "Towards the north this flat region is bounded only by the 
horizon, but to the south, at a few miles distance, it gradually rises, becoming rolling, and is 
again filled with small lakes, which sometimes discharge their waters into streams running to 
the southwest. 
Lake Traverse is a beautiful sheet of water, twelve miles long and from two to three wide, 
studded with a few small islands; its water level sixty or seventy feet below the general level 
of its banks; these are quite abrupt and cut by deep ravines branching in every direction, 
