and over this is worn occasionally a robe.  To these are added leggings and moccasins.  The women suffer their hair to fall in disorder over the face and shoulders, and their chief article of covering is a long shirt of skin, reaching down to the ankles, and tied round the waist.  In other respects, as also in the few ornaments which they possess, their appearance is similar to that of the Shoshonees:  there is, however, a difference between the languages of these two people, which is still farther increased by the very extraordinary pronunciation of the Ootlashoots.  Their words have all a remarkably guttural sound, and there is nothing which seems to represent the tone of their speaking more exactly than the clucking of a fowl or the noise of a parrot.  This peculiarity renders their voices scarcely audible, except at a short distance; and, when many of them are talking, forms a strange confusion of sounds.  The common conversation that we overheard consisted of low, guttural sounds, occasionally broken by a low word or two, after which it would relapse, and could scarcely be distinguished.  They seemed kind and friendly, and willingly shared with us berries and roots, which formed their sole stock of provisions.  Their only wealth is their horses, which are very fine, and so numerous that this party had with them at least five hundred.”

These Indians were on their way to join the other bands who were hunting buffalo on the Jefferson River, across the Great Divide.  They set out the next morning, and the explorers resumed their toilsome journey, travelling generally in a northwesterly direction and looking for a pass across the Bitter Root Mountains.  Very soon, all indications of game disappeared, and, September 14, they were forced to kill a colt, their stock of animal food being exhausted.  They pressed on, however, through a savage wilderness, having frequent need to recur to horse-flesh.  Here is an entry under date of September 18, in the journal:  “We melted some snow, and supped on a little portable soup, a few canisters of which, with about twenty pounds’ weight of bear’s oil, are our only remaining means of subsistence.  Our guns are scarcely of any service, for there is no living creature in these mountains, except a few small pheasants, a small species of gray squirrel, and a blue bird of the vulture kind, about the size of a turtle-dove, or jay.  Even these are difficult to shoot.”

“A bold running creek,” up which Captain Clark passed on September 19, was appropriately named by him “Hungry Creek,” as at that place they had nothing to eat.  But, at about six miles’ distance from the head of the stream, “he fortunately found a horse, on which he breakfasted, and hung the rest on a tree for the party in the rear.”  This was one of the wild horses, strayed from Indian bands, which they found in the wilderness, too wild to be caught and used, but not too wild to shoot and eat.  Later, on the same day, this entry is made in the journal: