CHAPTER IV.'
EXPEDITION TO THE BLACXFEET COUNTRY -ST. IGNA
TIUS TO FORT AUGUSTUS.
Sets out for the Flatbow country - Meets Ogden in the woods - De Smet on the Oregon Question - The country and its products - The camas toot--Fish festival of the natives-Dense forestsPrecious metals and their beating on the Indians' welfare-Meets Kootenais in Tobacco Prairie -Good trail to sources of Columbia --Starts to find the Blackfect-Notes on bears-On Canadians-Is well fed - Wild scenery - Quotes much poetry - Bow river - Dreams,
and more poetry -Comes upon an Assiniboin camp - They are untidy and their dogs steal-Porcupine Lore- How to ride in the woods - Mineral deposits - The prairie ocean - Survey of the Indian
field - Comes to Rocky Mountain house - Kindness of Harriote - Something about the Crees - A crafty medicine-man - Thirteen Blackfeet come in- A hard year for Blackfeet - Some of their traditionsSets forth again in search of the main camp---Loses a bad interpreter and pursues a good one-Gives up and repairs to Fort Augustus.
, of August I continued my route toward the country of the Arcs-A-plats [Flatbows]. The roads were
still inundated by the great freshet. I preferred ascending the Clark or Flathead river in my bark canoe, and sent my horses across the forests bordering the river to await
me at the great lake of the Kalispels. I had here a very interview; as we approached the issued forth in tattered garment,,,.
agreeable and unexpecte,
forests, several horsern
dish text of the Oregon Missions, and
I This chapter follows the
comprises Letters VI. VII, VIII. IX, X, XI and part of XIII of that work (Letters V, VI, V11, VIII, IX, X and XII, Mixtions de I'Oregon), published as letters to Bishop Hughes and dated as by footnotes inserted at the proper places.
21.ctter dated Station of the Assumption, Flatbow country, August 17, 180
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