HKB
itself is wide, and crowded with sandbars. Elk, deer, squirrels, a pelican, and a very large porcupine, were our game this day; some foxes too were seen, but not caught.
In the morning we observed a man riding on horseback down towards the boat, and we were much pleased to find that it was George Shannon, one of our party, for whose safety we had been very uneasy. Our two horses having strayed from us on the 26th of August, he was sent to search for them. After he had found them he attempted to rejoin us, but seeing some other tracks, which must have been those of Indians, and which he mistook for our own, he concluded that we were ahead, and had been for sixteen days following the bank of the river above us. During the first four days he exhausted his bullets, and was then nearly starved, being obliged to subsist, for twelve days, on a few grapes, and a rabbit which he killed by making use of a hard piece of stick for a ball. One of his horses gave out, and was left behind; the other he kept as a last resource for food. Despairing of overtaking us, he was returning down the river, in hopes of meeting some other boat; and was on the point of killing his horse, when he was so fortunate as to join us.
Wednesday, September 12. The day was dark and cloudy; the wind from the northwest. At a short distance we reached an island in the middle of the river, which is covered with timber, a rare object now. We with great difficulty were enabled to struggle through the sandbars, the water being very rapid and shallow, so that we were several hours in making a mile. Several times the boat wheeled on the bar, and the men were obliged to jump out and prevent her from upsetting; at others, after making a way up one channel, the shoalness of the water forced us back to seek the deep channel. We advanced only four miles in the whole day and encamped on the south. Along both sides of the river are high grounds; on the southern side particularly, they form dark bluffs, in which may be observed slate and coal intermixed. We saw also several villages of barking-squirrels; great numbers of growse, and three foxes.
September 13, Thursday. We made twelve miles to-day through a number of sandbars, which make it difficult to find the proper channel. The hills on each side are high, and separated from the river by a narrow plain on its borders. On the north, these lowlands are covered in part with timber, and great quantities of grapes, which are now ripe: on the south we found plenty of plums, but they are not yet ripe; and near the dark bluffs, a run tainted with allum and copperas; the southern side being more strongly impregnated with minerals than the northern. Last night four beaver were caught in the traps; a porcupine was shot as it was upon a cottontree, feeding on its leaves and branches. We encamped on the north side, opposite to a small willow island. At night the musquitoes were very troublesome, though the weather was cold and rainy and the wind from the northwest.