Patrick Gass: April 7, 1805

with them. The commanding officers held a conversation
with these Indians; and they concluded that some of them
would go down in the boat from their village to St. Louis.
About 5 o’clock in the afternoon we left fort Mandan in
good spirits. Thirty one men and a woman went up the river
and thirteen returned down it in the boat. We had two
periogues and six canoes, and proceeded about four miles,
and encamped opposite the first Mandan village, on the North
side.