Soon after they had fixed their camp, the explorers bade farewell to their good friend Tunnachemootoolt and his young men, who returned to their homes farther down the river.

Others of the Nez Perce, or Chopunnish, nation visited them, and the strangers were interested in watching the Indians preparing for their hunt.

As they were to hunt the deer, they had the head, horns, and hide of that animal so prepared that when it was placed on the head and body of a hunter, it gave a very deceptive idea of a deer; the hunter could move the head of the decoy so that it looked like a deer feeding, and the suspicious animals were lured within range of the Indians' bow and arrow.
On the sixteenth of May, Hohastillpilp and his young men also left the white men's camp and returned to their own village.

The hunters of the party did not meet with much luck in their quest for game, only one deer and a few pheasants being brought in for several days.

The party were fed on roots and herbs, a species of onion being much prized by them.
Bad weather confined them to their camp, and a common entry in their journal refers to their having slept all night in a pool of water formed by the falling rain; their tent-cover was a worn-out leathern affair no longer capable of shedding the rain.