Camp Chopunnish (Long Camp), waiting for snow to melt — Patrick Gass: May 15, 1806

ers went out early. The rest of the party were engaged
making places of shelter, to defend them from the stormy
weather. Some had small sails to cover their little hovels,
and others had to make frames and cover them with grass.
Around our camp the plains have the appearance of a mea-
dow before it is mowed, and affords abundance of food for
our horses. Here we expect to remain a month before we
LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION — 233
can cross the mountains. The natives staid all day at our
camp; and one of them had round his neck the scalp of an
Indian, with six thumbs and four fingers of the other Indians
he had killed in battle, of the Sho-sho-ne, or Snake nation.
The nation here the Cho-no-nish, is very numerous, as well as
the other. These nations have been long at war and destroyed
a great many of each other in a few years past.
From the Mandan nation to the Pacific ocean, the arms of
the Indians are generally bows and arrows, and the war-mallet.
The war-mallet is a club with a large head of wood or stone;
those of stone are generally covered with leather, and fastened
to the end of the club with thongs or straps of leather and
the sinews of animals.*
In the afternoon two of our hunters came in and had
killed nothing but some grouse; four more continued out.