Monday, 21st. One of our horses strayed away last night, and could not now be found, we therefore set out without him, and as usual without breakfasting. The Indian trace was again discovered, and pursued about nine miles to the dining place at noon. Here we were obliged to have recourse for food to a little treasured store of dried bison meat, which, when all issued, amounted to the pittance of two ounces per man; this, added to the soup maigre of the skunk, and a half pint of the crumbs of bread, afforded a tolerably good though far from abundant meal.
{ 88} Proceeded on under an extreme atmospheric temperature of 90 degrees; several deer were seen, but they proved to be so shy, that our hunters, perhaps through over-eagerness, did not succeed in approaching them within gun shot. After accomplishing a distance of ten miles, we pitched our camp on the river bank. Here the stream turns rather abruptly to the east, after having preserved a southerly and south of west direction for a considerable distance. A considerable stream of water, called Nesuketonga, or Grand Saline creek, flows into the river at this point, nearly opposite to our camp.[118]
Supped on a few bread crumbs boiled in water. A black wolf, the first seen since our departure from the Missouri, made his appearance in the distance.
Tuesday, 22d. Three of the horses having strayed detained us until eight o'clock, when a fall of rain commenced, which continued during the morning, and wet us thoroughly to the skin. A few hostile Indians, aware of the state of our fire-arms, might perhaps have disappointed our hopes of a safe return to the settlements, if, in their attack, their bow-strings could have been preserved from the effects of the rain, which tends greatly to relax them.
A note like that of the prairie dog for a moment induced the belief that a village of the marmot was near; but we were soon undeceived by the appearance of the beautiful tyrannus forficatus in full pursuit of a crow. Not at first recognising the bird, the fine elongated tail plumes, occasionally diverging in a furcate manner, and again closing together, to give direction to the aerial evolutions of the bird, seemed like the extraneous processes of dried grass, or twigs of a tree, adventitiously attached to the tail, and influenced by currents of wind. The feathered warrior flew forward to a tree, from whence, at our too near approach, he descended to the earth at a little distance, continuing at intervals his chirping note. This bird seems to be rather rare in this region, and as the { 89} very powder within the barrels of our guns was wet, we were obliged to content ourselves with only a distant view of the bird.
