March, 1806.--Many reasons had inclined us to remain at Fort Clatsop till the 1st of April. Besides the want of fuel in the Columbian plains, and the impracticability of crossing the mountains before the beginning of June, we were anxious to see some of the foreign traders, from whom, by our ample letters of credit, we might recruit our exhausted stores of merchandise. About the middle of March, however, we became seriously alarmed for the want of food. The elk, our chief dependence, had at length deserted its usual haunts in our neighborhood, and retreated to the mountains. We were too poor to purchase food from the Indians; so that we were sometimes reduced, notwithstanding all the exertions of our hunters, to a single day's provision in advance. The men too, whom the constant rains and confinement had rendered unhealthy, might, we hoped, be benefited by leaving the coast, and resuming the exercise of travelling. We therefore determined to leave Fort Clatsop, ascend the river slowly, consume the month of March in the woody country, where we hoped to find subsistence, and in this way reach the plains about the 1st of April, before which time it will be impossible to cross them. During the winter, we have been very industrious in dressing skins; so that we now have a sufficient quantity of clothing, besides between three and four hundred pairs of moccasons. But the whole stock of goods on which we are to depend for the purchase of horses or of food, during the long journey of four thousand miles, is so much diminished, that it might all be tied in two handkerchiefs. We therefore feel that our chief dependence must be on our guns, which, fortunately, are all in good order, as we took the precaution of bringing a number of extra locks, and one of our men proved to be an excellent gunsmith. The powder had been secured in leaden canisters; and, though on many occasions they had been under water, it remained perfectly dry: and we now found ourselves in possession of one hundred and forty pounds of powder, and twice that weight of lead,--a stock quite sufficient for the route homewards. We were now ready to leave Fort Clatsop; but the rain prevented us for several days from calking the canoes, and we were forced to wait for calm weather before we could attempt to pass Point William, which projects about a mile and a half into the sea, forming, as it were, the dividing-line between the river and the ocean; for the water below is salt, while that above is fresh. On March 23, at one o'clock in the afternoon, we took a final leave of Fort Clatsop. We doubled Point William without any injury, and at six o'clock reached the mouth of a small creek, where we found our hunters. They had been fortunate enough to kill two elks, which were brought in, and served for breakfast next morning.