May came on cold and windy, and on the second of the month, the journal records that snow fell to the depth of an inch, contrasting strangely with the advanced vegetation.

“Our game to-day,” proceeds the journal, “were deer, elk, and buffalo:  we also procured three beaver.  They were here quite gentle, as they have not been hunted; but when the hunters are in pursuit, they never leave their huts during the day.  This animal we esteem a great delicacy, particularly the tail, which, when boiled, resembles in flavor the fresh tongues and sounds of the codfish, and is generally so large as to afford a plentiful meal for two men.  One of the hunters, in passing near an old Indian camp, found several yards of scarlet cloth suspended on the bough of a tree, as a sacrifice to the deity, by the Assiniboins; the custom of making these offerings being common among that people, as, indeed, among all the Indians on the Missouri.  The air was sharp this evening; the water froze on the oars as we rowed.”

The Assiniboin custom of sacrificing to their deity, or “great medicine,” the article which they most value themselves, is not by any means peculiar to that tribe, nor to the Indian race.

An unusual number of porcupines were seen along here, and these creatures were so free from wildness that they fed on, undisturbed, while the explorers walked around and among them.  The captains named a bold and beautiful stream, which here entered the Missouri from the north,—­Porcupine River; but modern geography calls the water-course Poplar River; at the mouth of the river, in Montana, is now the Poplar River Indian Agency and military post.  The waters of this stream, the explorers found, were clear and transparent,—­an exception to all the streams, which, discharging into the Missouri, give it its name of the Big Muddy.  The journal adds:—­

“A quarter of a mile beyond this river a creek falls in on the south, to which, on account of its distance from the mouth of the Missouri, we gave the name of Two-thousand-mile creek.  It is a bold stream with a bed thirty yards wide.  At three and one-half miles above Porcupine River, we reached some high timber on the north, and camped just above an old channel of the river, which is now dry.  We saw vast quantities of buffalo, elk, deer,—­principally of the long-tailed kind,—­antelope, beaver, geese, ducks, brant, and some swan.  The porcupines too are numerous, and so careless and clumsy that we can approach very near without disturbing them, as they are feeding on the young willows.  Toward evening we also found for the first time the nest of a goose among some driftwood, all that we had hitherto seen being on the top of a broken tree on the forks, invariably from fifteen to twenty or more feet in height.”