eek, to supply themselves
with a stock of oars and poles from the tough wood of the ash, which
is not met with higher up the Missouri. While the voyagers were thus
occupied, the naturalists rambled over the adjacent country to collect
plants. From the summit of a range of bluffs on the opposite side of the
river, about two hundred and fifty feet high, they had one of those vast
and magnificent prospects which sometimes unfold themselves in those
boundless regions. Below them was the Valley of the Missouri, about
seven miles in breadth, clad in the fresh verdure of spring; enameled
with flowers and interspersed with clumps and groves of noble trees,
between which the mighty river poured its turbulent and turbid stream.
The interior of the country presented a singular scene; the immense
waste being broken up by innumerable green hills, not above eight feet
in height, but extremely steep, and actually pointed at their summits. A
long line of bluffs extended for upwards of thirty miles parallel to
the Missouri, with a shallow lake stretching along their base, which had
evidently once formed a bed of the river. The surface of this lake was
covered with aquatic plants, on the broad leaves of which numbers of
water-snakes, drawn forth by the genial warmth of spring, were basking
in the sunshine.

On the 2d day of May, at the usual hour of embarking, the camp was
thrown into some confusion by two of the hunters, named Harrington,
expressing their intention to abandon the expedition and return home.
One of these had joined the party in the preceding autumn, having been
hunting for two years on the Missouri; the other had engaged at St.
Louis, in the following March, and had come up from thence with Mr.
Hunt. He now declared that he had enlisted merely for the purpose
of following his brother, and persuading him to return; having been
enjoined to do so by his mother, whose anxiety had been awakened by the
idea of his going on such a wild and distant expedition.

The loss of two stark hunters and prime riflemen was a serious affair to
the party, for they were approaching the region where they might expect
hostilities from the Sioux; indeed, throughout the whole of their
perilous journey, the services of such men would be all important, for
little reliance was to be placed upon the valor of the Canadians in
case of attack. Mr. Hunt endeavored by arguments, expostulations,
and entreaties, to shake the determination of the two broth