Blue beads are the articles most in request; the white occupy the next place in their estimation; but they do not value much those of any other color.

We succeeded at last in purchasing their whole cargo for a few fish-hooks and a small sack of Indian tobacco, which we had received from the Shoshonees." The winter camp was made up of seven huts, and, although it was not so carefully fortified as was the fort in the Mandan country (during the previous winter), it was so arranged that intruders could be kept out when necessary.

For the roofs of these shelters they were provided with "shakes" split out from a species of pine which they called "balsam pine," and which gave them boards, or puncheons, or shakes, ten feet long and two feet wide, and not more than an inch and a half thick.

By the sixteenth of December their meat-house was finished, and their meat, so much of which had been spoiled for lack of proper care, was cut up in small pieces and hung under cover.

They had been told by the Indians that very little snow ever fell in that region, and the weather, although very, very wet, was mild and usually free from frost.