“The two antelopes afforded us quite a sufficiency of food to last until our arrival at Fort Union, which we reached early on the ninth day after our departure from the Minitarées.”
At Fort Union food was scarce. The Indians camped there were afraid to venture away from the post to hunt, and immediately about the post white hunters and Indians had been hunting until all the game had been killed or driven away.
It did not take long to get together such supplies as might be had for Palliser’s party--saddles, bridles, ammunition, a couple of traps, some coffee, sugar, and salt. It was necessary to cross the Missouri River from north to south below the mouth of the Yellowstone. This done, a few miles would take them into a land of plenty, a region where game was abundant; but the crossing would be difficult. The river was high and the water still cold. While going down the river they were fortunate enough to see deer and a little later some elk, of which they secured two. Their abundance now made them think of the starvation back at Fort Union and, packing up their surplus meat, they took it back to the fort to exchange for certain much needed things. Among these things were fishhooks, awls, needles, and, most important of all, an excellent four-oared skiff.
With the boat they succeeded in taking their horses and party across the Missouri, and this done they cached their precious skiff, burying it under the willows on the south bank of the Yellowstone, close to its junction with the Missouri.
Almost at once they found themselves in a country of abundant game, and of this game the antelope chiefly impressed the author. Of them he said: “These march in line, sometimes for several miles together, and, by imitating the movements of their leader, exhibit the most striking effects, resembling military evolutions: they simultaneously whirl round their white breasts and red flanks, like the ‘Right face!--Left face!’ of a regiment on parade. Obedient to the motions of their leader, when he stops, all stop: he stamps and advances a step, the slight similar impulse waves all down along the line; he then gives a right wheel, and round go all their heads for one last look; finally, he gives the right face about, and away ‘their ranks break up like clouds before a Biscay gale.’ Stately wapiti wandered on the plain, feeding not far from the willows, to whose friendly shelter in they crashed the moment we presented ourselves to their view. And as we approached steep frowning cliffs, overhanging the river, I saw, for the first time, the wild sheep or grosse corne of the Rocky Mountains, balancing themselves, chamois-like, on the tops of most inaccessible crags, whither they had rushed on first catching sight of us.” He repeats the ancient fable that the sheep horns are so large and solid as to enable the animal to safely fling himself on his head from considerable heights.