It was now early in May, and the expedition, travelling eastward along Touchet Creek, were in the country of their friends, the Chopunnish.

On the third, they were agreeably surprised to meet Weahkootnut, whom they had named Bighorn from the fact that he wore a horn of that animal suspended from his left arm.

This man was the first chief of a large band of Chopunnish, and when the expedition passed that way, on their path to the Pacific, the last autumn, he was very obliging and useful to them, guiding them down the Snake, or Lewis River.

He had now heard that the white men were on their return, and he had come over across the hills to meet them.

As we may suppose, the meeting was very cordial, and Weahkootnut turned back with his white friends and accompanied them to the mouth of the Kooskooskee, a stream of which our readers have heard before; it is now known as the Clearwater.
Captain Lewis told Weahkootnut that his people were hungry, their slender stock of provisions being about exhausted.