August 25th. "Mosquitoes are very bad, although the weather is quite cold and bracing." August 26th. "We had a very good dinner to-day, consisting of bouillon (broth) made of geese, ducks, etc., with ham, pork, coffee, bread and butter, etc." August 27th. "Cool, cloudy, and quite cold early in the morning; fine weather for travelling; up at daylight, and away upon our march at half-past five. We are to-day passing on the dividing ridge between the head waters of the Red, Minnesota, and Mississippi rivers." August 30th. "To-day suffered much from mosquitoes. No imagination can do them justice--they must be seen and felt to be appreciated. Mr. Bond rode a cream-colored horse, and declared that he was unable to distinguish the color of the animal, so thickly was he covered with the pests. During supper they swarmed around like bees hiving, and entered the mouth, nose, eyes, and ears, and had it not been for a cool fresh evening breeze they would have been unbearable." August 31st. "Our hunters discovered two buffalo bulls about two miles ahead. They immediately equipped and started, and soon surrounded and killed both. We soon joined them and encamped. The buffaloes were skinned, the choice parts cut out, and the liver and kidney fried for dinner. These were our first buffaloes, and there was much excitement over them." September 1st. "Another buffalo to-day, but a sad accident. During the chase Pierre Bottineau, our best French halfbreed guide, was thrown violently from his horse, which stumbled. Bottineau was picked up insensible, terribly stunned, though not much hurt. He was bled, brought to camp in the carriage and put to bed." September 4th. "The prairie is so bare that no wood is to be had. Having no wood we were obliged to boil our kettle, and the French boys their pork and buffalo, over a fire made of buffalo chips, _i.e._, of dried buffalo manure picked up on the prairie. Only a few mosquitoes troubled us, and they were driven to leeward by the strong smoke and smell of the buffalo chips." September 6th. "To-night there was the finest exhibition of the _aurora borealis_ that any of us have ever seen. To attempt a description is the height of vanity. The Rev. Mr. Black and Mr. Bond gazed very long upon it, as a most remarkable manifestation in the heavens, before they could tear themselves away and return to rest. Mr. Black, who had seen the Northern sky in Scotland and Canada, says it was much the finest exhibition he has ever seen. Bottineau declared that he had never seen its equal this side of Hudson Bay." September 7th. "It is three weeks to-day since we left St. Paul." September 8th. "A furious thunderstorm overtook us. It came down a deluge, a perfect torrent of falling waters, though the heaviest of the storm had passed around us to the south."