Saturday, 13th.  In the morning our visitors left us, except the brother of the chief who accompanies us and one of the squaws.  We passed at an early hour a camp of Sioux on the north bank, who merely looked at us without saying a word, and from the character of the tribe we did not solicit a conversation.  At ten and a half miles we reached the mouth of a creek on the north, which takes its rise from some ponds a short distance to the northeast:  to this stream we gave the name of Stoneidol creek, for after passing a willow and sand island just above its mouth, we discovered that a few miles back from the Missouri there are two stones resembling human figures, and a third like a dog; all which are objects of great veneration among the Ricaras.  Their history would adorn the metamorphoses of Ovid.  A young man was deeply enamoured with a girl whose parents refused their consent to the marriage.  The youth went out into the fields to mourn his misfortunes; a sympathy of feeling led the lady to the same spot, and the faithful dog would not cease to follow his master.  After wandering together and having nothing but grapes to subsist on, they were at last converted into stone, which beginning at the feet gradually invaded the nobler parts leaving nothing unchanged but a bunch of grapes which the female holds in her hands to this day.  Whenever the Ricaras pass these sacred stones, they stop to make some offering of dress to propitiate these deities.  Such is the account given by the Ricara chief which we had no mode of examining, except that we found one part of the story very agreeably confirmed; for on the river near where the event is said to have occurred, we found a greater abundance of fine grapes than we had yet seen.  Above this is a small creek four and a half miles from Stoneidol creek, which is fifteen yards wide, comes in from the south, and received from us the name of Pocasse or Hay creek, in honour of the chief of the second village.  Above the Ricara island, the Missouri becomes narrow and deeper, the sandbars being generally confined to the points; the current too is much more gentle; the timber on the lowlands is also in much greater quantities, though the high grounds are still naked.  We proceeded on under a fine breeze from the southeast, and after making eighteen miles encamped on the north near a timbered low plain, after which we had some rain and the evening was cold.  The hunters killed one deer only.

Sunday, 14th.  We set out in the rain which continued during the day.  At five miles we came to a creek on the south, about fifteen yards wide, and named by us Piaheto or Eagle’s Feather, in honour of the third chief of the Ricaras.  After dinner we stopped on a sandbar, and executed the sentence of a court martial which inflicted corporal punishment on one of the soldiers.  This operation affected the Indian chief very sensibly, for he cried aloud during the punishment:  we explained the offence and the reasons of it.  He acknowledged that examples