resident Jefferson did not
like to risk rousing their animosity.

The rain that now deluged the unhappy campers was so incessant that they
might well have thought that people should be web-footed to live in such
a watery region. In these later days, Oregon is sometimes known as "The
Web-foot State." Captain Clark, in his diary, November 28, makes this
entry: "O! how disagreeable is our situation dureing this dreadfull
weather!" The gallant captain's spelling was sometimes queer. Under that
date he adds:--

"We remained during the day in a situation the most cheerless and
uncomfortable. On this little neck of land we are exposed, with a
miserable covering which does not deserve the name of a shelter, to
the violence of the winds; all our bedding and stores, as well as
our bodies, are completely wet; our clothes are rotting with constant
exposure, and we have no food except the dried fish brought from the
falls, to which we are again reduced. The hunters all returned hungry
and drenched with rain, having seen neither deer nor elk, and the swan
and brant were too shy to be approached. At noon the wind shifted to the
northwest, and blew with such tremendous fury that many trees were blown
down near us. This gale lasted with short intervals during the whole
night."

Of course, in the midst of such violent storms, it was impossible to get
game, and the men were obliged to resort once more to a diet of
dried fish, This food caused much sickness in the camp, and it became
imperatively necessary that efforts should again be made to find game.
On the second of December, to their great joy an elk was killed, and
next day they had a feast. The journal says;

"The wind was from the east and the morning fair; but, as if one whole
day of fine weather were not permitted, toward night it began to rain.
Even this transient glimpse of sunshine revived the spirits of the
party, who were still more pleased when the elk killed yesterday was
brought into camp. This was the first elk we had killed on the west side
of the Rocky Mountains, and condemned as we have been to the dried
fish, it formed a most nourishing food. After eating the marrow of the
shank-bones, the squaw chopped them fine, and by boiling extracted a
pint of grease, superior to the tallow itself of the animal. A canoe of
eight Indians, who were carrying down wappatoo-roots to trade with
the Clatsops, stopped at our camp; we bought a few roots for small
fish-hooks, and the