Fort Mandan, North Dakota — Patrick Gass: November 8, 1804

a clear day and fair wind from the S. E. Passed the bed of a
creek without water. At 9 I went out with one of our men,
who had killed a buffaloe and left his hat to keep off the
vermin and beasts of prey ; but when we came to the place,
30 GASS’S JOURNAL OF THE
we found the wolves had devoured the carcase and carried off
the hat. Here we found a white wolf dead, supposed to have
been killed in a contest for the buffaloe. We passed high
bluffs on the south side and burnt prairie on the north. We
encamped on an island covered with timber ; and having a
number of buffaloe on it. Captain Lewis who had been out
with some of the men hunting informed us he had passed a
trading house, built in 1796. This day we killed two buffaloe,
a large and a small elk, a deer and two beaver.