are loaded as heavily as their strength will permit, the crossing is really painful:  some are limping with the soreness of their feet, others are scarcely able to stand for more than a few minutes from the heat and fatigue:  they are all obliged to halt and rest frequently, and at almost every stopping place they fall and many of them are asleep in an instant; yet no one complains and they go on with great cheerfulness.  At their camp Drewyer and Fields joined them, and while captain Lewis was looking for them at Medicine river, they returned to report the absence of Shannon about whom they had been very uneasy.  They had killed several buffaloe at the bend of the Missouri above the falls:  and dried about eight hundred pounds of meat and got one hundred pounds of tallow:  they had also killed some deer, but had seen no elk.  After getting the party in motion with the canoes captain Clarke returned to his camp at Portage creek.

We were now occupied in fitting up a boat of skins, the frame of which had been prepared for the purpose at Harper’s ferry.  It was made of iron, thirty-six feet long, four feet and a half in the beam, and twenty-six inches wide in the bottom.  Two men had been sent this morning for timber to complete it, but they could find scarcely any even tolerably straight sticks four and a half feet long, and as the cottonwood is too soft and brittle we were obliged to use the willow and box-alder.

Tuesday, 25.  The party returned to the lower camp.  Two men were sent on the large island to look for timber.  J. Fields was sent up the Missouri to hunt elk; but he returned about noon and informed us that a few miles above he saw two white bear near the river, and in attempting to fire at them came suddenly on a third, who being only a few steps off immediately attacked him; that in running to escape from the monster he leaped down a steep bank of the river, where falling on a bar of stone he cut his hand and knee and bent his gun; but fortunately for him the bank concealed him from his antagonist or he would have been most probably lost.  The other two returned with a small quantity of bark and timber, which was all they could find on the island; but they had killed two elk:  these were valuable, as we are desirous of procuring the skins of that animal in order to cover the boat, as they are more strong and durable than those of the buffaloe, and do not shrink so much in drying.  The party that went to the lower camp had one canoe and the baggage carried into the high plain to be ready in the morning, and then all who could make use of their feet had a dance on the green to the music of a violin.  We have been unsuccessful in our attempt to catch fish, nor does there seem to be any in this part of the river.  We observe a number of water terrapins.  There are quantities of young blackbirds in these islands just beginning to fly.  Among the vegetable productions we observe a species of wild rye which is now heading:  it rises to the height of eighteen or twenty inches, the beard remarkably fine and soft; the culen is jointed, and in every respect except in height it resembles the wild rye.  Great quantities of mint too, like the peppermint, are found here.