August 27. Busy this morning in the purchase and exchange of horses with the Indians. We secured several very good horses in place of six very indifferent mules. Several members of the expedition bought horses for clothing, guns, etc., their private property, thus relieving for the use of the expedition their present riding animals. By the distribution of presents and provisions, and consumption at camp, we lightened our loads some two thousand pounds, apart from the issue to the detached parties, and have received twelve serviceable animals in place of unserviceable ones, besides four new ones purchased by members of the party, two presented to me, and two purchased by Mr. Culbertson.
August 28. I made to-day twenty-four and a half miles with the advance parties. I was very much pleased with the good offices of the Running Fisher, who brought into camp two of our missing horses. By my invitation he will accompany us to Fort Benton.
August 29. The road to-day was not as good as usual: the river-bottom was much dried up, with deep cracks in the soil, and the numerous holes made by the prairie dogs were even, at times, a worse obstacle to our progress. Made our halt about twelve miles from camp, where we dined. By an accident, the wind being high, the prairie took fire, which extended over considerable surface. Our dining-place was on a branch of Milk River, flowing from Cypress Mountain. Parallel to this, and some three miles farther on, crossed a second branch, issuing also from the Cypress Mountain. By a bend, the two branches nearly meet, forming what is called the junction.
Mr. Culbertson estimates the number of the Gros Ventres at about three hundred lodges, ten persons to the lodge, of which the proportion of men to women is one to two, the number of men being about six hundred. On his arrival in the country twenty-three years ago, they numbered four hundred lodges. In 1838–39, by a junction of the Crees and Assiniboines, some sixty lodges were entirely destroyed at Julius Mountain. A few years subsequently another attack was made at Cypress Mountain, in which sixty more lodges were exterminated, three men only escaping on this occasion, one of whom was the Sitting Squaw, father of the one already mentioned. Soon after Mr. Culbertson’s arrival in the country, he and four or five other whites, with a party of Blackfoot Indians, were attacked by a war party of Assiniboines, numbering some seven or eight hundred. The field was contested all day, night only ending the conflict. In the morning the Assiniboines did not resume the attack, and abandoned many of their dead on the field. A considerable number of the Blackfeet were also killed, but none of the whites.
August 30. Yesterday we were in sight of the Bear’s Paw, quite a broad and rugged mountain upheaval, stretching from Milk River to the Missouri. I sent off Lieutenant Grover, Mr. Lander, and Mr. Stanley, to make an examination of the Bear’s Paw, so far as it could be done by ascending one of its highest peaks, estimated to be about seventeen or eighteen miles distant. I moved on myself with the remainder of the party, having determined that I would no longer ride in the ambulance, but would make the effort to push forward either on horseback or on foot. After moving seven or eight miles I suffered so exceedingly from riding that I walked some five or six miles with great difficulty, until, coming to a good camp on our second crossing of Milk River, and the point where we were to leave it on our way to Fort Benton, I halted the party and rested for two hours. This gave me strength enough to mount my horse and ride to camp, eighteen miles farther on, on a tributary of the Box Elder Creek. We crossed several branches of this creek, which is a tributary of Milk River, that has its source very near the Missouri and is on our general line to Fort Benton. The ascent is very gradual from Milk River to our camp; the soil generally is very good. The view this afternoon was delightful. Bear’s Paw itself presents a rugged, grotesque appearance, and it requires no great stretch of the imagination to see in it the paw of a grizzly bear, ready to spring upon the plain.
The Three Buttes, or the Sweet Grass Hills, some sixty miles to the northward of us, are a favorite resort of the Blackfeet, who say that Providence created these hills for the tribe to ascend and look out for buffalo. Southward we have a view of mountains on the other side of the Missouri. Our distance to-day was twenty-nine and a half miles.
August 31. We made an early start this morning, and in twelve miles came to the upper waters of the Box Elder Creek, which is a clear, limpid stream, affording an unfailing supply of water. We then pushed on five miles over a fine rolling prairie to a coulee in the hills, where there was a spring, and here we halted to dine. This spring is a great resort for buffalo. Considerable water flows from it, but the ordure of the buffalo was in such great quantities about it that it infected the water, and moreover they had trampled all the ground, and had stirred up the water of the spring with their feet. We however thought it would be well enough for us to make coffee, and we managed to get up a very respectable meal. After stopping three hours, we continued on over a very good road. There was a shower of rain and hail about four P.M. At five the Missouri was in sight, the Belt Mountains looming up beyond it at a distance of not less than fifty miles. After a march of thirty-three miles from our morning camp, we came to a place called the Springs; here the water was dried up, and there was no wood, but excellent grass. We pitched our camp in a coulee surrounded by high hills, and went to work to dig wells for water, in hopes to procure some for our animals. We succeeded in getting only a small quantity for each. There was a very high wind and a heavy thunder-shower until near midnight. Our Indian friends assisted us very much in the night in looking out for our animals. Grover, Stanley, and Lander have not come in, which gives me a good deal of apprehension. The Running Fisher told me a story to-day illustrating one of the phases of Indian life. The Bear’s Paw, as one would infer from its wild and stern appearance, has been a scene of Indian fight and massacre. Seven years ago a fight occurred in the Bear’s Paw between their tribe, allied with the Blackfeet, and the Crows, in which he killed one of the latter. The Crows occupied an impregnable post, from whence they could shoot down all who approached within twenty paces. A Blackfoot was shot in the head through a fissure in the rocks. The Gros Ventres then determined to surround and starve them out; at night the Crows got off with the loss of one man, killed by Running Fisher.
September 1. This morning we made an early start, and, crossing over a high, rolling prairie, in eleven miles and three quarters came to the Marias River. The descent to this river on the trail is somewhat steep, the prairie plateau being over two hundred feet above the river-bottom. The river itself here presents a beautiful view. It is a clear, limpid stream, flowing over a pebbly and sandy bed, the bottoms lined with cottonwood of heavy growth, with thickets of the service and other berries. The Belt Mountains are very distinctly visible in the distance, as is also Citadel Hill, called so because its base rests upon the Missouri, and it rises perpendicularly like a bastion some two hundred feet high. Near by is Square Hill, so called from its supposed resemblance to that geometrical figure.
At our noon halt, or near by, was the scene of a sanguinary conflict between the Gros Ventres and the Crows in 1849, in which the latter were all killed. Several of those traveling in our company figured in the action. A party of Crows to the number of twenty-two were concealed in the hollow just in advance of where we dined, for the purpose of stealing horses from the Gros Ventres’ camp, consisting of two hundred lodges. Being discovered, the Gros Ventres surrounded them, and threw up dust in the air, which was carried by a strong wind in the faces of the Crows, blinding them, when the Gros Ventres rushed in upon them, and killed the whole number without losing a man. None were left to carry home the news.
We were off about noon; passed over the prairie, and descended in the valley of the Teton, where we met Mr. Clarke, in charge of Fort Benton, who came out to meet us. We arrived at Fort Benton at 3.30 o’clock, where we were received with a salute of fifteen guns.