December 19, 1804
Wednesday 19. The weather moderated, and the river rose a little, so that we were enabled to continue the picketing of the fort. Notwithstanding the extreme cold, we observe the Indians at the village engaged out in the open air at a game which resembled billiards more than any thing we had seen, and which we inclined to suspect may have been acquired by ancient intercourse with the French of Canada. From the first to the second chief's lodge, a distance of about fifty yards, was covered with timber smoothed and joined so as to be as level as the floor of one of our houses, with a battery at the end to stop the rings: these rings were of clay-stone and flat like the chequers for drafts, and the sticks were about four feet long, with two short pieces at one end in the form of a mace, so fixed that the whole will slide along the board. Two men fix themselves at one end, each provided with a stick, and one of them with a ring: they then run along the board, and about half way slide the sticks after the ring.

December 20, 1804
Thursday 20. The wind was from the N.W. the weather moderate, the thermometer 24° above 0 at sunrise. We availed ourselves of this change to picket the fort near the river.

December 21, 1804
Friday 21. The day was fine and warm, the wind N.W. by W. The Indian who had been prevented a few days ago from killing his wife, came with both his wives to the fort, and was very desirous of reconciling our interpreter, a jealousy [144]against whom on account of his wife's taking refuge in his house, had been the cause of his animosity. A woman brought her child with an abscess in the lower part of the back, and offered as much corn as she could carry for some medicine; we administered to it of course very cheerfully.

December 22, 1804
Saturday, 22d. A number of squaws and men dressed like squaws brought corn to trade for small articles with the men. Among other things we procured two horns of the animal called by the French the Rock mountain sheep, and known to the Mandans by the name of ahsahta. The animal itself is about the size of a small elk or large deer: the horns winding like those of a ram which they resemble also in texture, though larger and thicker.

December 23, 1804
Sunday, 23d. The weather was fine and warm like that of yesterday: we were again visited by crowds of Indians of all descriptions, who came either to trade or from mere curiosity. Among the rest Kogahami, the Little Raven, brought his wife and son loaded with corn, and she then entertained us with a favorite Mandan dish, a mixture of pumpkins, beans, corn, and chokecherries with the stones, all boiled together in a kettle, and forming a composition by no means unpalatable.Friday 14. The morning was fine, and the weather having moderated so far, that the mercury stood at 0, Captain Lewis went down with a party to hunt; they proceeded about eighteen miles, but the buffalo having left the banks of the river they saw only two, which were so poor as not to be worth killing, and shot two deer. Notwithstanding the snow we were visited by a large number of the Mandans.

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