On May 8 the party discovered the largest and most important of the northern tributaries of the Upper Missouri. The journal thus describes the stream:--"Its width at the entrance is one hundred and fifty yards; on going three miles up, Captain Lewis found it to be of the same breadth and sometimes more; it is deep, gentle, and has a large quantity of water; its bed is principally of mud; the banks are abrupt, about twelve feet in height, and formed of a dark, rich loam and blue clay; the low grounds near it are wide and fertile, and possess a considerable proportion of cottonwood and willow.
It seems to be navigable for boats and canoes; by this circumstance, joined to its course and quantity of water, which indicates that it passes through a large extent of country, we are led to presume that it may approach the Saskaskawan [Saskatchewan] and afford a communication with that river. The water has a peculiar whiteness, such as might be produced by a tablespoonful of milk in a dish of tea, and this circumstance induced us to call it Milk River."
Modern geography shows that the surmise of Captain Lewis was correct.
Some of the tributaries of Milk River (the Indian name of which signifies "The River that Scolds at all Others") have their rise near St. Mary's River, which is one of the tributaries of the Saskatchewan, in British America.
The explorers were surprised to find the bed of a dry river, as deep and as wide as the Missouri itself, about fifteen miles above Milk River. Although it had every appearance of a water-course, it did not discharge a drop of water.
Their journal says:--"It passes through a wide valley without timber; the surrounding country consists of waving low hills, interspersed with some handsome level plains; the banks are abrupt, and consist of a black or yellow clay, or of a rich sandy loam; though they do not rise more than six or eight feet above the bed, they exhibit no appearance of being overflowed; the bed is entirely composed of a light brown sand, the particles of which, like those of the Missouri, are extremely fine. Like the dry rivers we passed before, this seemed to have discharged its waters recently, but the watermark indicated that its greatest depth had not been more than two feet.
This stream, if it deserve the name, we called Bigdry [Big Dry] River."
And Big Dry it remains on the maps unto this day.
In this region the party recorded this observation:--"The game is now in great quantities, particularly the elk and buffalo, which last is so gentle that the men are obliged to drive them out of the way with sticks and stones. The ravages of the beaver are very apparent; in one place the timber was entirely prostrated for a space of three acres in front on the river and one in depth, and great part of it removed, though the trees were in large quantities, and some of them as thick as the body of a man.
Yet so great have been the ravages of man among these gentle creatures, that elk are now very rarely found in the region, and the buffalo have almost utterly disappeared from the face of the earth.
Just after the opening of the Northern Pacific Railway, in 1883, a band of sixty buffaloes were heard of, far to the southward of Bismarck, and a party was organized to hunt them.
The BOLD hunters afterwards boasted that they killed every one of this little band of survivors of their race.
The men were now (in the middle of May) greatly troubled with boils, abscesses, and inflamed eyes, caused by the poison of the alkali that covered much of the ground and corrupted the water.
Here is an entry in the journal of May 11:--"About five in the afternoon one of our men [Bratton], who had been afflicted with boils and suffered to walk on shore, came running to the boats with loud cries, and every symptom of terror and distress.
For some time after we had taken him on board he was so much out of breath as to be unable to describe the cause of his anxiety; but he at length told us that about a mile and a half below he had shot a brown bear, which immediately turned and was in close pursuit of him; but the bear being badly wounded could not overtake him.
Captain Lewis, with seven men, immediately went in search of him; having found his track they followed him by the blood for a mile, found him concealed in some thick brushwood, and shot him with two balls through the skull. Though somewhat smaller than that killed a few days ago, he was a monstrous animal, and a most terrible enemy.