there is much more stone on the sides of the hills and on the broken lands than is to be found lower down.  We saw in the plains vast quantities of buffaloe, a number of small birds, and the large brown curlew, which is now sitting, and lays its eggs, which are of a pale blue with black-specks, on the ground without any nest.  There is also a species of lark much resembling the bird called the oldfield lark, with a yellow breast and a black spot on the croup; though it differs from the latter in having its tail formed of feathers of an unequal length and pointed; the beak too is somewhat longer and more curved, and the note differs considerably.  The prickly pear annoyed us very much to-day by sticking through our moccasins.  As soon as we had kindled our fires we examined the meat which captain Clarke had left here, but found that the greater part of it had been taken by the wolves.

Sunday, 23.  After we had brought up the canoe and baggage captain Clarke went down to the camp at Portage creek, where four of the men had been left with the Indian woman.  Captain Lewis during the morning prepared the camp, and in the afternoon went down in a canoe to Medicine river to look after the three men who had been sent thither to hunt on the 19th, and from whom nothing had as yet been heard.  He went up the river about half a mile and then walked along on the right bank, hallooing as he went, till at the distance of five miles he found one of them who had fixed his camp on the opposite bank, where he had killed seven deer and dried about six hundred pounds of buffaloe meat, but had killed no elk, the animal chiefly wanted.  He knew nothing of his companions except that on the day of their departure from camp he had left them at the falls and come on to Medicine river, not having seen them since.  As it was too late to return captain Lewis passed over on a raft which he made for the purpose and spent the night at Shannon’s camp, and the next morning,

Monday, 24, sent J. Fields up the river with orders to go four miles and return, whether he found the two absent hunters or not; then descending the southwest side of Medicine river, he crossed the Missouri in the canoe, and sent Shannon back to his camp to join Fields and bring the meat which they had killed:  this they did, and arrived in the evening at the camp on Whitebear islands.  A part of the men from Portage creek also arrived with two canoes and baggage.  On going down yesterday captain Clarke cut off several angles of the former route so as to shorten the Portage considerably, and marked it with stakes:  he arrived there in time to have two of the canoes carried up in the high plain about a mile in advance.  Here they all repaired their moccasins, and put on double soals to protect them from the prickly pear and from the sharp points of earth which have been formed by the trampling of the buffaloe during the late rains:  this of itself is sufficient to render the portage disagreeable to one who had no burden; but as the men