Camp Chopunnish (Long Camp), waiting for snow to melt — Patrick Gass: May 22, 1806

white frost. At three o’clock five of our hunters came in with
five deer; previous to which we had killed a fine colt. In the
afternoon we saw a great number of the natives on horseback
pursuing a deer on the opposite side of the river. They
drove it so hard that it was obliged to take the water, when
some of our men went down the bank and shot it, and the
natives got on a raft and caught it. These Indians are the
most active horsemen I ever saw: they will gallop their horses
over precipices, that I should not think of riding over at all.
The frames of their saddles are made of wood nicely
jointed, and then covered with raw skins, which when they
become dry, bind every part tight, and keep the joints in their
places. The saddles rise very high before and behind, in the
236 GASS’S JOURNAL OF THE
manner of the saddles of the Spaniards, from whom they no
doubt received the form: and also obtained their breed of
horses. When the Indians are going to-mount they throw
their buffaloe robes over the saddles and ride on them, as the
saddles would otherwise be too hard.
LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION — 237
CHAP. XXI.
RIDAY 23rd. We again had a fine morning.—One of
our sergeants shot a deer at a lick close to our camp,
and wounded it very bad, but it got to the river and swam
over. Two young Indians who had been at our camp all
night, then mounted their horses, swam over and drove it
back ; and we killed it and gave them half of it. The river is
about two hundred yards wide and cold and rapid. In the aft-
ernoon all the hunters came in but had killed nothing more.