Few Snakes were met, because this was the season when the Snakes went buffalo hunting, but “in our travels this day (26 February) we saw a Snake Indian’s hut near the road. Curiosity induced me to enter. I had often heard these wretches subsisted on ants, locusts and small fish not larger than minnies (minnows); and I wanted to find out if it were not an exaggeration, but to my surprise I found it was true. One of the dishes was filled with ants collected in the morning before the thaw commences. The locusts are gathered in summer in store for the winter. The Indians prefer the ants. On this food the poor wretches drag out existence for four months of the year and are happy. During February, we took one hundred and seventy-four beaver. Had the weather been mild, we should have had three thousand. An incredible number of deer here, but only skin and bone, nevertheless most exceptable (?) to us starving.” He mentions that it was on Sickly or Malade River that the Blackfeet killed one of his men the preceding year. “If the Americans have not been here since, we shall find beaver.” On the 13th of March, McKay came in with a dozen elk, and the half-starved hunters sat up till dawn feasting. But alas, on March 20th, near Raft River, came a camp of Indians with word “that a party of Americans are not three days’ march away. If this be true, our hunts are damned. We may prepare to go home empty handed. With my discontented men, I dread meeting the Americans. After the sufferings the men have endured with me, they will desert.” Snake camps now began to pass westward at the rate of four hundred people a day, carrying their supply of buffalo meat and also--what struck sorrow to Ogden’s heart--an American flag. A thousand Snake warriors were on the way to the Spanish settlements of the South to trade buffalo meat and steal horses. Near the American Falls, the Brigade fell in with marauding Blackfeet, friendly, no doubt, because of Ogden’s wife, who was related to the Northern tribes. “The Blackfeet informed me, they left the Saskatchewan in December and were in quest of the Snakes, but finding them so strong did not attempt it. They consisted of eighty men with the usual reserve of twenty or thirty Piegans hidden in the hills. March 31st--To-day, twenty-seven beaver, which makes our first thousand with two to begin the second thousand. I hope to reach Fort Vancouver with three thousand.” “Sunday, April 9th, Portneuf River, headwaters of the Snake--About 10 A. M., we were surprised by the arrival of a party of Americans, and twenty-eight of our deserters of last year. If we were surprised, they were more so. They expected their threats of last year would prevent us returning to this quarter, but they find themselves mistaken. They encamped a short distance away. With the glass, we could observe the Blackfeet on the hills spying on our movements.