Volume 1

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SULLEN SILENCE—snake's DEN SIGHTED. 319
July igth. At daybreak it was very cold, and our fingers
were benumbed in saddling. Sullen silence reigned. I
must confess my mind was not at ease, my people being so
far from agreeing as to our situation. Three of them had
already been to the Mandanes, one of them no later than
last year. It was those very fellows who insisted that we
were too low down. The western ^^ course we had kept since
leaving Riviere la Souris establishment persuaded me that
our guide was right, and that we must be above the villages
;
but having many voices against me, I did not wish
to insist upon it. I, therefore, desired my guide to go
which way he thought proper, either E. or W. He
instantly mounted his horse and turned eastward, edging
for the Missourie. Some murmured, others were silent
but all followed him. Soon after leaving camp we found
the carcass of a cow, which had been lately killed, and the
head opened to take out the brains. This revived the
drooping spirits of some of our party ; as no war party
would take out the brains of an animal, it must have been
done by some hunters, who we hoped were Mandanes.
At eight o'clock we crossed the miry, muddy rivulet,"
which appears to come from the salt lake we passed yesterday,
and empties into the Missourie. At nine o'clock, on
ascending a high hill, our guide pointed out the Loge
de Serpent," distant about five leagues E. S. E. This dis-
^° Henry does not mean that the course had been " west," but simply that from
the beginning of the journey they had held considerably W. of S., in comparison
with the more directly S. course usually traveled from the " Riviere
la Souris establishment " at the confluence of Mouse r. with the Assiniboine.
^* I do not venture upon any identification of this " miry, muddy rivulet," in
the uncertainty attending Henry's route from Mouse r. , and in our ignorance
of the topography of most of Stevens and Garfield cos. When these are surveyed
and mapped, it may not be difficult to lay down Henry's trail from the
topographical details he gives. At present, I can only refer to L. and C, ed.
1893, p. 269, for what is said of that stream which the explorers called Onion cr.
This, or one very near it, may turn out to be the "miry, muddy rivulet " which
Henry mentions.
^^ Well known as the Snake's Den—an eminent landmark at the mouth of
Miry or Snake cr., where Henry is about to strike the Missouri. The state-