We hastened up the river for five days, during which time we crossed a number of small streams which fell into it. Then we reached the eastern spurs of the Medicine Mountains, in which the river rises and pours over the rocks in the shape of a large torrent. Here we crossed it, and following the base of these hills in the plain, we reached on the second evening a small stream, which flows for at least a hundred miles due east through this broad plain, which the Indians called Lamarie, to the Black Mountains bordering the plain, and, as Owl told us, winds through the latter till it falls into the Northern Platte to the east of Fort Lamarie. These mountains, which in height and shape exactly resemble the range from which the Bighorn rises, are to the north of that snow peak. We marched along the stream to the eastward to the Black Mountains, and then turned up an arm of it coming from the south until it was lost in the plain. We marched from here for a whole day without water, and were obliged to pass the night, too, without it or fire, as the desolate plain over which we rode showed us not a single tree. Toward evening the next day we reached a lake, which was about three miles in circumference, but its waters were slightly impregnated with salt: following its banks, however, we arrived on its western side at some clear streams of fresh water. Here we refreshed ourselves and camped, though it was early in the afternoon, and amused ourselves with shooting geese and swans. On the next evening we came to a similar lake, with fresh-water streams on its western side, so that we again had a splendid camp, and took advantage of the opportunity to bathe in the lake. During the next day our road again ran over a desolate, melancholy plain, but toward evening we saw a low wood in the distance, and reached another arm of the river which runs through the Black Mountains to Fort Lamarie. Here we had everything we could desire, a protected camp in the wood, and a splendid trout stream, in which we refreshed ourselves and our horses. We shot several fat buffaloes, and a few black-tailed stags. The wood above us sufficed to put us in good spirits, for we were very tired of the monotonous, desolate plains over which we had been marching for a long time. Before sunset our horses neighed, and we heard them answered from, outside the wood. All at once there was a thundering burst through the low bushes, and the leader of a troop of wild horses fell in terror immediately in front of our fire, and the animals behind him one over the other, after which they got up again in the utmost fear and confusion and dashed out of the wood. The stallion was a splendid iron-grey, very powerfully built and finely shaped, and we all regretted that we were unable to take him home.