On Sunday, the twenty-fifth, we remained encamped, and some of the men were employed in drying a part of the meat killed on the preceding day. {163} This was done that we might be able to carry constantly with us a small supply of provisions, in reserve against any occasion when we might not meet with game.
The magnetic variation equated from two sets of observations, was found to be 14° east. Observations for longitude were made; it was also attempted to take the meridian altitude of Antares for ascertaining the latitude, but the observation was commenced a few minutes too late, we having been longer occupied in making the preceding observations than we had anticipated.[115]
26th. The weather had now been for some days fair. As we approached the mountains, we felt or fancied, a very manifest change in the character of the weather, and the temperature of the air. Mornings and evenings were usually calm, and the heat more oppressive than in the middle of the day. Early in the forenoon, a light and refreshing breeze often sprung up, blowing from the west or south-west, which again subsided on the approach of night. This phenomenon was so often observed that we were induced to attribute it to the operation of the same local cause, which in the neighbourhood of the sea, produces a diurnal change in the winds, which blow alternately to and from the shore. The Rocky Mountains may be considered as forming the shore of that sea of sand, which is traversed by the Platte, and extends northward to the Missouri, above the great bend.
The rarefaction of the air over this great plain, by the reverberation of the sun's rays during the day, causes an ascending current, which is supplied by the rushing down of the condensed air from the mountains. Though the sun's rays in the middle of the day were scorching and extremely afflictive to our eyes, the temperature of the air, as indicated by the thermometer, had hitherto rarely exceeded 80° Fah.
{164} In the forenoon we passed a range of hills more elevated than any we had seen west of the Missouri. These hills cross the Platte from north to south, and though inconsiderable in magnitude, they can be distinguished extending several miles on each side of the river. They consist principally of gravel, intermixed with small water-worn fragments of granite and other primitive rocks, but are based on a stratum of coarse friable sand-stone, of a dark gray colour, which has been uncovered, and cut through by the bed of the Platte.
This range may perhaps be a continuation or spur from the black hills mentioned by Lewis and Clarke, as containing the sources of the Shienne, and other tributaries to the Missouri, at no great distance to the north of the place where we now were.[116]
At evening we arrived at another scattering grove of cotton-wood trees, among which we placed our camp, immediately on the brink of the river. The trees of which these insulated groves are usually composed, from their low and branching figure, and their remoteness from each other, as they stand scattered over the soil they occupy, revived strongly in our minds the appearance and gratifications resulting from an apple orchard; for which from a little distance they might readily be mistaken, if seen in a cultivated region. At a few rods distant on our right hand, was a fortified Indian camp, which appeared to have been recently occupied. It was constructed of such broken half-decayed logs of wood as the place afforded, intermixed with some skeletons of bisons recently killed. It is of a circular form, enclosing space enough for about thirty men to lie down upon. The wall is about five feet high, with an opening towards the east, and the top uncovered.
At a little distance in front of the entrance of this breastwork, was a semicircular row of sixteen bison skulls, with their noses pointing down the river. Near the centre of the circle which this row would {165} describe, if continued, was another skull marked with a number of red lines.
Our interpreter informed us that this arrangement of skulls and other marks here discovered, were designed to communicate the following information, namely, that the camp had been occupied by a war party of the Skeeree or Pawnee Loup Indians, who had lately come from an excursion against the Cumancias, Ietans, or some of the western tribes. The number of red lines traced on the painted skull indicated the number of the party to have been thirty-six; the position in which the skulls were placed, that they were on their return to their own country. Two small rods stuck in the ground, with a few hairs tied in two parcels to the end of each, signified that four scalps had been taken.
A record of facts, which may be important and interesting to others, is thus left for the benefit of all who may follow. For our part we were glad to be informed, that one lawless and predatory band of savages had lately left the country we were about to traverse. We were never without some anxiety on the subject of Indian war-parties; who are known frequently to remunerate themselves for any discomfiture or loss they may have sustained, by making free booty of the property and the scalps of the first weak or unguarded party they may meet.