Captain Clark was now in the lead with a small party, and he came upon the remains of several Indian camps formed of willow-brush, Traces of Indians became more plentiful.  The journal adds:—­

“At the same time Captain Clark observed that the pine trees had been stripped of their bark about the same season, which our Indian woman says her countrymen do in order to obtain the sap and the soft parts of the wood and bark for food.  About eleven o’clock he met a herd of elk and killed two of them; but such was the want of wood in the neighborhood that he was unable to procure enough to make a fire, and was therefore obliged to substitute the dung of the buffalo, with which he cooked his breakfast.  They then resumed their course along an old Indian road.  In the afternoon they reached a handsome valley, watered by a large creek, both of which extended a considerable distance into the mountain.  This they crossed, and during the evening travelled over a mountainous country covered with sharp fragments of flint rock; these bruised and cut their feet very much, but were scarcely less troublesome than the prickly-pear of the open plains, which have now become so abundant that it is impossible to avoid them, and the thorns are so strong that they pierce a double sole of dressed deer-skin; the best resource against them is a sole of buffalo-hide in parchment (that is, hard dried).  At night they reached the river much fatigued, having passed two mountains in the course of the day, and travelled thirty miles.  Captain Clark’s first employment, on lighting a fire, was to extract from his feet the thorns, which he found seventeen in number.”

The dung of the buffalo, exposed for many years to the action of sun, wind, and rain, became as dry and firm as the finest compressed hay.  As “buffalo chips,” in these treeless regions, it was the overland emigrants’ sole dependence for fuel.

The explorers now approached a wonderful pass in the Rocky Mountains which their journal thus describes: 

“A mile and a half beyond this creek (Cottonwood Creek) the rocks approach the river on both sides, forming a most sublime and extraordinary spectacle.  For five and three quarter miles these rocks rise perpendicularly from the water’s edge to the height of nearly twelve hundred feet.  They are composed of a black granite near their base, but from the lighter color above, and from the fragments, we suppose the upper part to be flint of a yellowish brown and cream color.

“Nothing can be imagined more tremendous than the frowning darkness of these rocks, which project over the river and menace us with destruction.  The river, one hundred and fifty yards in width, seems to have forced its channel down this solid mass; but so reluctantly has it given way, that during the whole distance the water is very deep even at the edges, and for the first three miles there is not a spot, except one of a few yards, in which a man could stand