But the explorers soon found that although the pirogue was to be left behind, the way was too difficult for a portage even for canoes.

The journal says:-- "We found great difficulty and some danger in even ascending the creek thus far, in consequence of the rapids and rocks of the channel of the creek, which just above where we brought the canoes has a fall of five feet, with high steep bluffs beyond it.

We were very fortunate in finding, just below Portage Creek, a cottonwood tree about twenty-two inches in diameter, large enough to make the carriage-wheels.

It was, perhaps, the only one of the same size within twenty miles; and the cottonwood which we are obliged to employ in the other parts of the work is extremely soft and brittle.

The mast of the white pirogue, which we mean to leave behind, supplied us with two axle-trees.
"There are vast quantities of buffalo feeding on the plains or watering in the river, which is also strewed with the floating carcasses and limbs of these animals.