THE MISSOURI RIVER JOURNALS S 



we passed Cannon Ball River,^ and the very remarkable 

 bluffs about it, of which we cannot well speak until we 

 have stopped there and examined their nature. We saw 

 two Swans alighting on the prairie at a considerable dis- 

 tance. We stopped to take wood at Bowie's settlement, 

 at which place his wife was killed by some of the Riccaree 

 Indians, after some Gros Ventres had assured him that 

 such would be the case if he suffered his wife to go out of 

 the house. She went out, however, on the second day, 

 and was shot with three rifle-balls. The Indians took parts 

 of her hair and went off. She was duly buried ; but the 

 Gros Ventres returned some time afterwards, took up the 

 body, and carried off the balance of her hair. They, how- 

 ever, reburied her; and it was not until several months 

 had elapsed that the story came to the ears of Mr. Bowie. 

 We have also passed Apple Creek,^ but the chief part is 

 yet to be added. At one place where the bluffs were 

 high, we saw five Buffaloes landing a few hundred yards 

 above us on the western side; one of them cantered off 



1 " We reached the mouth of Le Boulet, or Cannon Ball River. This 

 stream rises in the Black Mts. and falls into the Missouri ; its channel is 

 about 140 feet wide, though the water is now confined within 40 ; its name 

 is derived from the numbers of perfectly round stones on the shore and 

 in the bluffs just above." (" Lewis and Clark," ed. 1893.) 



" We came to an aperture in the chain of hills, from which this river, 

 which was very high, issues. On the north side of the mouth there was a 

 steep, yellow clay wall ; and on the southern, a flat, covered with poplars and 

 willows. This river has its name from the singular regular sandstone balls 

 which are found in its banks, and in those of the Missouri in its vicinity. 

 They are of various sizes, from that of a musket ball to that of a large 

 bomb, and lie irregularly on the bank, or in the strata, from which they often 

 project to half their thickness ; when the river has washed away the earth 

 they then fall down, and are found in great numbers on the bank. Many of 

 them are rather elliptical, others are more flattened, others flat on one side 

 and convex on the other. Of the perfectly spherical balls, I observed some 

 two feet in diameter. A mile above the mouth of Cannon Ball River I saw 

 no more of them." ("Travels in North America," p. 167, Maximilian, 

 Prince of Wied.) 



2 Present name of the stream which falls into the Missouri from the east, 

 about five miles below Fort Rice ; Chewah or Fish River of Lewis and 

 Clark ; Shewash River of Maximilian. Audubon is now approaching 

 Bismarck, the capital of North Dakota. — E. C. 



