just moving off. Travelled about 9 miles West & camped on the E. side of the great dry coulée which according to Pallisers map runs up to Lake Pakopee [now Pakowki Lake] (1). This being as near the Milk R as possible to approach with teams on the line. Camped at a small gorge the banks composed of stratified clays & sandstones almost perpendicular. A small stream originating from a spring at the bottom but the water rather saline & tasting so even through the strongest tea.

During this mornings march passed where the half-breeds had been running buffalo a few days before. The hillsides & valleys strewn with carcasses. Those in best condition had been completely stripped, while the poorer ones & old bulls had had only the tit bits removed.

Left camp at I P.M. & rode with Ashe &c. across the Dry Coulée & over into the valley of the river itself. On a prominent point found an indian grave, evidently very old. An immense mound of stones piled over it. [Could this be the One Four Medicine Wheel?].

The valley of the Milk R. is exceedingly curious & picturesque. The banks of the gorge are at least 150 feet high where the line crosses & the flat bottom between them about half a mile wide. The banks are almost entirely bare of vegetation & cut up by lateral coul6s & ravines down which one may pass on horseback by following the buffalo tracks. The clays & sandstones of different colours running nearly horizontal as far as the eye can see.

The river itself winds in broad curves from side to side of the valley, & Northward from the line is fringed by large poplar trees (P. Grandidenta? [angustifolia, a Cottonwood?] & by willows.

Rode down into valley, Ashe looking for Capt. Als picket & mound while I examined sections &c. The river is now quite shallow & small & surrounded by wide borders of sandbanks. In most places with a soft treacherous bottom, but by choosing the buffalo fords can easily pass with a horse. The lowest bottoms over which the river must constantly pass in flood show luxuriant growth of grass & afford splendid feed. A level slightly higher than this which the river can seldom or never touch is clad chiefly by Artemisia of several species. A third level

(1).Palliser's map was necessarily very generalized. This location is actually 25 miles farther N.W. Dawson would camp there on July 6, 1881 and again on June 15, 1883.