The men may have mixed fruit into their whiskey to extend their supply to make is last until July 4, 1805.

Birthdays
William Clark wrote lighthearted entries to mark the captains' August 1804 birthdays. Clark was thirty-four and Lewis, thirty. The next year, Clark does not mention his birthday in the August 1805 entry. Lewis wrote on the longest introspective commentaries in the journals on his 18 August 1805 birthday, lamenting "time spent in indolence. He resolves "in the future to live for mankind as I have heretofore lived for myself."

On 1 August 1806, Clark was leading part of the Expedition along the Yellowstone River. Again, he does note his birthday in any way. On 18 August 1806, Lewis no longer made journal entries, although it is a fair guess that the captain was not in a mood to celebrate his birthday. A week earlier, Pierre Cruzatte, the boatman and fiddler with poor eyesight, had confused Lewis with an elk and shot him in the left buttock.