..."We Passed An Island And Two Sand-Bars, And At The Distance Of Two
And A Half Miles Came To A Handsome River, Which Discharges Itself On
The South, And Which We Ascended To The Distance Of A Mile And A Half:
We Called It Judith's River.
It rises in the Rocky Mountains,
in about the same place with the Musselshell, and near the
Yellowstone River.
Its entrance is one hundred yards wide from one bank
to the other, the water occupying about seventy-five yards, and being
in greater quantity than that of the Musselshell River. . . . There
were great numbers of the argalea, or bighorned animals, in the high
country through which it passes, and of beaver in its waters.
Just above the entrance of it we saw the ashes of the fires of one
hundred and twenty-six lodges, which appeared to have been deserted
about twelve or fifteen days."
Leaving Judith's River, named for a sweet Virginia lass,
the explorers sailed, or were towed, seventeen miles up the river,
where they camped at the mouth of a bold, running river to which they
gave the name of Slaughter River. The stream is now known as the Arrow;
the appropriateness of the title conferred on the stream by Lewis
and Clark appears from the story which they tell of their experience
just below "Slaughter River," as follows:
"On the north we passed a precipice about one hundred and twenty feet high,
under which lay scattered the fragments of at least one hundred
carcasses of buffaloes, although the water which had washed away
the lower part of the hill must have carried off many of the dead.
These buffaloes had been chased down the precipice in a way very common
on the Missouri, by which vast herds are destroyed in a moment.
The mode of hunting is to select one of the most active and fleet
young men, who is disguised by a buffalo-skin round his body;
the skin of the head with the ears and horns being fastened on his
own head in such a way as to deceive the buffalo.
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