at first moderate, it then increased to a heavy rain, the effects of which they did not feel:  soon after a torrent of rain and hail descended; the rain seemed to fall in a solid mass, and instantly collecting in the ravine came rolling down in a dreadful current, carrying the mud and rocks, and every thing that opposed it.  Captain Clarke fortunately saw it a moment before it reached them, and springing up with his gun and shotpouch in his left hand, with his right clambered up the steep bluff, pushing on the Indian woman with her child in her arms; her husband too had seized her hand and was pulling her up the hill, but he was so terrified at the danger that but for captain Clark, himself and his wife and child would have been lost.  So instantaneous was the rise of the water, that before captain Clark had reached his gun and began to ascend the bank, the water was up to his waist, and he could scarce get up faster than it rose, till it reached the height of fifteen feet with a furious current, which had they waited a moment longer would have swept them into the river just above the great falls, down which they must inevitable have been precipitated.  They reached the plain in safety, and found York who had separated from them just before the storm to hunt some buffaloe, and was now returning to find his master.  They had been obliged to escape so rapidly that captain Clarke lost his compass and umbrella.  Chaboneau left his gun, shotpouch, and tomahawk, and the Indian woman had just time to grasp her child, before the net in which it lay at her feet was carried down the current.  He now relinquished his intention of going up the river and returned to the camp at Willowrun.  Here he found that the party sent this morning for the baggage, had all returned to camp in great confusion, leaving their loads in the plain.  On account of the heat they generally go nearly naked, and with no covering on their heads.  The hail was so large and driven so furiously against them by the high wind, that it knocked several of them down:  one of them particularly was thrown on the ground three times, and most of them bleeding freely and complained of being much bruised.  Willow run had risen six feet since the rain, and as the plains were so wet that they could not proceed, they passed the night at their camp.

At the Whitebear camp also, we had not been insensible to the hail-storm, though less exposed.  In the morning there had been a heavy shower of rain, after which it became fair.  After assigning to the men their respective employments, captain Lewis took one of them and went to see the large fountain near the falls.  For about six miles he passed through a beautiful level plain, and then on reaching the break of the river hills, was overtaken by the gust of wind from the southwest attended by lightning, thunder, and rain:  fearing a renewal of the scene on the 27th, they took shelter in a little gully where there were some broad stones with which they meant to protect