Marias River decision camp — Patrick Gass: June 5, 1805

night, and the morning was cloudy. When preparing to set
out we discovered three bears coming up the river towards
us; we therefore halted a while and killed the whole of them.
About 7 we set out along the plains again, and discovered the
mountain South of us covered with snow, that had fallen last
night. When we had gone about 11 miles we saw a large
mountain to the West of us also covered with snow. This
mountain appeared to run from North to South, and to be
very high. The bearing of the river is still South West.
Captain Clarke thought this a good course for us to proceed
on our voyage, and we turned back towards the camp again.
We went about 15 miles and struck the small river about 20
96 GASS’S JOURNAL OF THE
miles from its mouth. Here we killed some elk and deer and
encamped all night. There is a great deal of timber in the
bottoms of this little river, and plenty of different kinds of
game. In these bottoms I saw the stalks of a plant resem-
bling flax in every particular.