January 6th, 1820. Mr. Graham and I measured the width of the river in two places, a short distance below our cantonment, and a short distance above; [158] the latter gave two hundred and seventy-seven and one-third yards, and the former one hundred yards. We hear the barking of the prairie wolves every night about us; they venture close to our huts; last night they ran down and killed a doe, within a short distance of our huts; this morning the remains of the carcass were found, consisting only of bones and skin. Mr. Fontenelle,[196] in the employ of the Missouri Fur Company, who has been absent for some time trading with one of the bands of the Omawhaws, called to-day on his return; this band had been much necessitated for food, subsisting for some time upon the fruit of the red haws, which the squaws sought for beneath the proper trees, under the snow. He met with some of the nation of Sioux, called Gens de Feuille[197] by the French. They have been much thinned in numbers by a disorder, which, from the description given of it, may be the quinsy. This same band is said to have suffered much from the small-pox last autumn. They were also now nearly starved for want of food; but they said if they could hold out until they arrived at Min-da-wa-cong, or Medicine lake, (on the maps, Spirit lake,)[198] they would do very well, as they had there a considerable quantity of wild oats buried, or _caché_, as the French say. 13th. Ietan,[199] an Oto, of whom we have before spoken, visited us to-day for the purpose of getting two gun-locks mended. He left his people at the Republican fork of the Konza river, and intends as soon as he returns, to lead a party in pursuit of bisons, which he says are in plenty on the Loup fork of the Platte, about sixty miles distant from us.[200]