, 1862-11-15


erty stricken enough, but had unaccounta-
bic good use of their legs and kept at a re-
spectful distance, notwithstanding the eff
forts of tie party to play low cunning on
them. They finally arrived at the Saskat-
chewan river, where they expected to find
from published accounts, large and fertile
valley, but were disappointed entirely
The character of the country along the
river was fOrbidding in the extreme; bar
ren, rough, sandy and dry. A more inhos-
pitable looking region was not travelled
over during the journey. They could find
no water away from the river and were OBJ
liged to follow its course When they
camped for night, it was necessary to de-
scend the abrupt banks several hundred
feet, for water. The river is deep and mar
row, and its banks are skirted with stunt
ed growth of cottonwood timber. They
follow ed up the south side of this river
some three hundred miles, and crossed but
one little stream of water the whole dis
tance. This tributary they called bear
creek, from the number of grizzly and
black bears they SAW during few days en-
campment there to recruit their wearied an
lmals. The bottom and hill sides was COW
cred with dense growth of cherry trees,
upon the berries of which the bears were
feeding. One of the party, the first eve
ming of their encampment on this stream,
concluded to have bear hunt, and ac-
cordingly dived into thicket of cherry
trees near by, but he was scarcely missed
from the camp when he come tumbling
down the hill, with two grizzlys close af-
ter him, Calculating with an air of melan-
choly despair: 1.-The bears! the bears =
Oh, boys, this is my last hunt " But the
grizzlys, after getting fairly ou: of the
thicket, turned at right angles and skedad-
died with apparently as much alarm as pos
sessed the hunter, who was making such
life or death strides towards camp. The
party killed numbers of bears and bufa-
loes while encamped there, which they
dried after the Indian style, for the jour
ney over the mountains.
The Blackfeet Indians, at the foot of the
mountains, we're very annoying. They
would take their horses and hide them
away at night in the timber, and when they
were asked if they knew anything of them,
would feign great surprise at their absence,
but would volunteer to hunt them for a
blanket When the blanket was promised
them if the animals were found, they would
hustle off in great haste and bring the ami
mails to camp in few minutes. The
squaws evinced great aptness at pilfering,
and would tighten their sacks of -four
while some Indian would be attracting the
attention of the party by variety of ges-
lures and distortions of the features, such
as drawing knife across his throat and then
pointing in an opposite direction from the
camp. The Indians offered the party no
violence, but kept them considerably alarm
ed. There was great scarcity of grass along
the South Saskatchewan, so much so that
it was difficult to procure pasture for their
animals. When within fifty miles of the
Rocky mountains grass become more plen-
tiful, and the soil changed from clay and
sand to rich loan. Small streams of
water from the mountains were numerous,
and the country seemed to be well adapted
for agricultural purposes.
One of the party prospected on little
stream at the foot of the mountains and OBJ
tanned small prospects of gold, but the In
dians made him desist and told him that he
must go (pointing westward) to the Bos-
toms country to dig for gold. Our inform
ant thinks that there will be good diggings
opened in that country in few years, as
the formation denotes the existence of gold
deposites somewhere in that region.
They followed the boundary pass across
the mountains, thence down the Kootenai
and Pen d'Oreille rivers to Colville, arri-
wing at that place on the goth of October.
Their route is supposed to be much longer
and not so good as that travelled by Capt
Fisk and party.