Volume 1

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2IO PROGRESS OF THE SEASON, MARCH AND APRIL.
Mar. igth. I saw nightingales, a gull, and a hawk. We
all
take from 30 to 50 fish daily. 2^th. Heavy rain ;
snow
gone ;
wild fowl in abundance. Red river clear of ice. Water
very high. Women making sugar. Very few drowned
buffalo drift down this spring, zyth. The plains are covered
with water from the melting of the snow so suddenly,
and our men suffer much, as they are continually on the
march, looking after Indians in every creek and little river.
The water is commonly knee deep, in some places up to
the middle, and in the morning is usually covered with ice,
which makes it tedious and even dangerous traveling.
Some of our best men lose the use of their legs while still
in the prime of life. ^oth. One of my men undertook to
make a real pair of wheels on the plan of those in Canada ;
he finished them to-day, and they were very well done.
I made him chief wheelwright, and we shall soon have
some capital carts.
A man gave a large stout dog a kick in
the side, of which the poor beast died instantly.
Apr. 8th. Plains on fire in every direction. We began
to fear the Assiniboines and Crees might steal our horses
they have seemed honest thus far, but they are all horsethieves.
i^tJi. Men making blockhouses to defend the
fort. We pretend it is on account of the Sioux, but I
apprehend much less danger from them than from the
Saulteurs, who are getting numerous, and at times insolent.
I4.th. Men working at the new ground, and manuring the
garden. Indians arriving daily and drinking the proceeds
of the spring hunt. igth. The men began to demolish
our dwelling-houses, which were built of bad wood, and to
build new ones of oak. The nests of mice we found, and
the swarms of fleas hopping in
every direction, were astonishing.
20th. Indians drinking. Le Boeuf quarreled with
his wife and knocked her senseless with a club, which
opened a gash on her head six inches long and down to the
bone. She laid so long before she recovered her senses
that I believed her dead. 22d. Mr. [Augustin] Cadotte
arrived from Hair hills en baggage. 2jd. I sent a man