THE MISSOURI RIVER JOURNALS 46 1 



We did not run far; the weather was still bad, raining 

 hard, and at ten o'clock, with wood nearly exhausted, we 

 stopped on the west shore, and there remained all the 

 night, cleaning boilers, etc. 



Sunday 30th. This morning was cold, and it blew a 

 gale from the north. We started, however, for a wooding- 

 place, but the " John Auld " had the advantage of us, and 

 took what there was; the wind increased so much that 

 the waves were actually running pretty high down-stream, 

 and we stopped until one o'clock. You may depend 

 my party was not sorry for this; and as I had had no 

 exercise since we left St. Louis, as soon as breakfast was 

 over we started — Bell, Harris, Squires, and myself, with 

 our guns — and had quite a frolic of it, for we killed a 

 good deal of game, and lost some. Unfortunately we 

 landed at a place where the water had overflowed the 

 country between the shores and the hills, which are distant 

 about one mile and a half We started a couple of Deer, 

 which Bell and I shot at, and a female Turkey flying fast ; 

 at my shot it extended its legs downwards as if badly 

 wounded, but it sailed on, and must have fallen across 

 the muddy waters. Bell, Harris, and myself shot running 

 exactly twenty-eight Rabbits, Lepus sylvaticus, and two 

 Bachmans, two Sciurus macrourus of Say, two Arctomys 

 monax, and a pair of Tetrao \_Bonasa'] umbellus. The 

 woods were alive with the Rabbits, but they were very 

 wild; the Ground-hogs, Marmots, or Arctomys, were in 

 great numbers, judging from the innumerable burrows we 

 saw, and had the weather been calm, I have no doubt we 

 would have seen many more. Bell wounded a Turkey hen 

 so badly that the poor thing could not fly; but Harris 

 frightened it, and it was off", and was lost. Harris shot an 

 Arctomys without pouches, that had been forced out of its 

 burrow by the water entering it ; it stood motionless until 

 he was within ten paces of it ; when, ascertaining what it 

 was, he retired a few yards, and shot it with No. 10 shot, 



