BOURGEOIS - Toronto Public Library

310 F. A. LAROCQUE
of the horses prevented my doing so to-day. Captain Clarke
upon being informed that I had to take care of the horses
myself, and that they were in danger of being thieved, desired
I would send them down, and that he would have them taken
care of with his own.
My landlord went down to the Americans to get his gun
mended; they have a very expert smith who is always employed
making different things and working for the Indians, who are
grown very fond of them, although they disliked them at first ..•
30th Went down to the American Fort to get my compass put in
Territorial
claims of
the U. S.
order, the glass being broken and the needle not pointing due
north, and to see how the horses were. Arrived there at 2 P. M.
Fine weather.
The Captains are busy makiug charts of the country through
which they had passed, and delineating the Head of the Missouri
aceording to the information they had from the Indians,
who described a river as being four days march west of the last.
navigable part of the Missouri, which river, they say, is very
large; and the Natives-whom they call" Snake Indians" or
" Flat Heads "-who inhabit thereabout go, in a certain season
of the year, to that river and live there entirely on fish. The
course of that river, they say, is nearly south and has a placid
current. The Captains make no doubt but that is a south branch
of the Columbia or Ouragan River; I think it is the route they
will take.
Having nothing to do at the lodge, I remained here a couple
of days, being pressed to do so by the Captains. They took
observations of the longitude and latitude of the place while I
was with them and often since their arrival here.
They differ much from Mr. Thompson in the longitude of this
place and say that Mr. Thompson has plaeed these villages and
this part of the river a great deal too westerly, which they