ched the neighborhood of what is now southern
Nebraska.

They Reached the Great Plains.

From there onwards the game was found in vast herds and the party began
to come upon those characteristic animals of the Great Plains which were
as yet unknown to white men of our race. The buffalo and the elk had
once ranged eastward to the Alleghanies and were familiar to early
wanderers through the wooded wilderness; but in no part of the east had
their numbers ever remotely approached the astounding multitudes in
which they were found on the Great Plains. The curious prong-buck or
prong-horned antelope was unknown east of the Great Plains. So was the
blacktail, or mule deer, which our adventurers began to find here and
there as they gradually worked their way northwestward. So were the
coyotes, whose uncanny wailing after nightfall varied the sinister
baying of the gray wolves; so were many of the smaller animals, notably
the prairie dogs, whose populous villages awakened the lively curiosity
of Lewis and Clark.

Good Qualities of Lewis and Clark.

In their note-books the two captains faithfully described all these new
animals and all the strange sights they saw. They were men with no
pretensions to scientific learning, but they were singularly close and
accurate observers and truthful narrators. Very rarely have any similar
explorers described so faithfully not only the physical features but the
animals and plants of a newly discovered land. Their narrative was not
published until some years later, and then it was badly edited, notable
the purely scientific portion; yet it remains the best example of what
such a narrative should be. Few explorers who did and saw so much that
was absolutely new have written of their deeds with such quiet absence
of boastfulness, and have drawn their descriptions with such complete
freedom from exaggeration.

Their Dealings with the Indians.

Moreover, what was of even greater importance, the two young captains
possessed in perfection the qualities necessary to pilot such an
expedition through unknown lands and among savage tribes. They kept good
discipline among the men; they never hesitated to punish severely any
wrong-doer; but they were never over-severe; and as they did their full
part of the work, and ran all the risks and suffered all the hardship
exactly like the other members of the expedition, they were regarded by
their followers with devoted affection, and were serv