6o A History of the Pacific Northwest
means ideal, for the party was in need of food, and in this region game was not very plentifuh The winter at Fort Clatsop was therefore a time of real hardship, relieved by the hope of a speedy return to homes beyond the mountains. The shelter was completed on the last day of December; the next morning "a volley of small arms "was fired "to salute the new year." Some of the men were kept busy hunting the lean elk, on which the party was forced to subsist; others were sent to the seacoast—seven miles distant—to manufacture a supply of salt. At the fort the officers busied themselves with the notes and journals of the expedition.
Completing the great map. On the nth of February Clark finished the great map of the overland route, so often printed, and a copy of a part of which is found in this book. A little trade with the Chinooks and Clatsops (mainly for dogs, fish, and wapato roots) formed the chief diversion during this tedious winter.
The return begun March 23, 1806; arrive at St. Louis September 23, 1806. The days dragged painfully by till the 23d of IMarch, when our travellers commenced the homeward journey. Before setting out they distributed written statements among the Indians, explaining who it was that had so mysteriously come to their country from the land of the rising sun. These the natives were instructed to show to any white men who should visit the river. The journey eastward was not without its difficulties. The tribes along the river demanded high prices for horses and dogs, and the
