much pleasure as those deservedly famed adventurers ever beheld theirs; and I dare say with quite as much anxiety for their safety and preservation. We were now about to penetrate a country at least two thousand miles in width, on which the foot of civilized man had never trodden; the good or evil it had in store for us was for experiment yet to determine, and these little vessells contained every article by which we were to expect to subsist or defend ourselves. However as the state of mind in which we are, generally gives the coloring to events, when the imagination is suffered to wander into futurity, the picture which now presented itself to me was a most pleasing one, entertaining as I do the most confident hope of succeeding in a voyage which had formed a darling project of mine for the last ten years, I could but esteem this moment of our departure as among the most happy of my life."

April 26th they came to the mouth of the Yellowstone River, which enters the Missouri 1888 miles above St. Louis. They had had no adventure of moment; neither was there cause for immediate anxiety, save as they observed signs of the Assiniboins. From the tribes with whom they had talked at winter quarters, they had heard stirring tales of this cut-throat band, which had inspired the wish to pass unobserved through their country. This desire was fulfilled. There was no meeting with the Assiniboins.