This of itself is sufficient to render the portage disagreeable to one who has no burden; but as the men are loaded as heavily as their strength will permit, the crossing is really painful.

Some are limping with the soreness of their feet; others are scarcely able to stand for more than a few minutes, from the heat and fatigue.

They are all obliged to halt and rest frequently; at almost every stopping-place they fall, and many of them are asleep in an instant; yet no one complains, and they go on with great cheerfulness.

At the camp, midway in the portage, Drewyer and Fields joined them; for, while Captain Lewis was looking for them at Medicine River, they returned to report the absence of Shannon, about whom they had been very uneasy.

They had killed several buffalo at the bend of the Missouri above the falls, dried about eight hundred pounds of meat, and got one hundred pounds of tallow; they had also killed some deer, but had seen no elk." Under this date, too, Captain Lewis, who was with another branch of the expedition, makes this note: "Such as were able to shake a foot amused themselves in dancing on the green to the music of the violin which Cruzatte plays extremely well." The journal continues:-- "We were now occupied (at White Bear camp) in fitting up a boat of skins, the frame of which had been prepared for the purpose at Harper's Ferry in Virginia.