About eleven o'clock, however, the wind became very high and a storm of rain came on, which lasted for two hours, accompanied with sharp lightning and loud peals of thunder.
"The party rose, next day, very wet, and proceeded to a sand-bar below the entrance of Whiteearth River.

Just above this place the Indians, apparently within seven, or eight days past, had been digging a root which they employ in making a kind of soup.

Having fixed their tents, the men were employed in dressing skins and hunting.

They shot a number of deer; but only two of them were fat, owing probably to the great quantities of mosquitoes which annoy them while feeding." On the eleventh of August the Clark party came up with the two white traders from Illinois, of whom we have already made mention as having been met by the Lewis party on their way down the river.

These were the first white men they had seen (except themselves) since they parted with the three French trappers, near the Little Missouri, in April, 1805, From them the wayworn voyagers received the latest news from the United States.