The farther course of our narrative will give fuller and more detailed information of the present disposition of the buffalo in the country we visited.
Among the roots we obtained here, I could distinguish only five or six different kinds; and the supply of the Indians whom we met consisted principally of yampah, (_anethum graveolens_,) tobacoo-root, (_valeriana_,) and a large root of a species of thistle, (_circium Virginianum_,) which now is occasionally abundant and is a very agreeably flavored vegetable.
We had been detained so long at the village, that in the afternoon we made only five miles, and encamped on the same river after a day's journey of 19 miles. The Indians informed us that we should reach the big salt water after having slept twice and traveling in a south direction. The stream had here entered nearly a level plain or valley, of good soil, eight or ten miles broad, to which no termination was to be seen, and lying between ranges of mountains which, on the right, were grassy and smooth, unbroken by rock, and lower than on the left, where they were rocky and bald, increasing in height to the southward. On the creek were fringes of young willows, older trees being rarely found on the plains, where the Indians burn the surface to produce better grass. Several magpies (_pica Hudsopica_) were seen on the creek this afternoon; and a rattlesnake was killed here, the first which had been seen since leaving the eastern plains. Our camp to-night had such a hungry appearance that I suffered the little cow to be killed, and divided the roots and berries among the people. A number of Indians from the village encamped near.
The weather the next morning was clear, the thermometer at sunrise at 44.5°; and, continuing down the valley, in about five miles we followed the little creek of our encampment to its junction with a larger stream, called _Roseaux_, or Reed river. Immediately opposite, on the right, the range was gathered into its highest peak, sloping gradually low, and running off to a point apparently some forty or fifty miles below. Between this (now become the valley stream) and the foot of the mountains, we journeyed along a handsome sloping level, which frequent springs from the hills made occasionally miry, and halted to noon at a swampy spring, where there were good grass and abundant rushes. Here the river was forty feet wide, with a considerable current, and the valley a mile and a half in breadth; the soil being generally good, of a dark color, and apparently well adapted to cultivation. The day had become bright and pleasant, with the thermometer at 71°. By observation, our latitude was 41° 59' 31", and the elevation above the sea 4,670 feet. On our left, this afternoon, the range at long intervals formed itself into peaks, appearing to terminate, about forty miles below, in a rocky cape, beyond which several others were faintly visible; and we were disappointed when, at every little rise, we did not see the lake. Towards evening, our way was somewhat obstructed by fields of _artemisia_, which began to make their appearance here, and we encamped on the Roseaux, the water of which had acquired a decidedly salt taste, nearly opposite to a canon gap in the mountains, through which the Bear river enters this valley. As we encamped, the night set in dark and cold, with heavy rain, and the artemisia, which was our only wood, was so wet that it would not burn. A poor, nearly starved dog, with a wound in his side from a ball, came to the camp, and remained with us until the winter, when he met a very unexpected fate.