Missouri and the Yellowstone; in their journals the
explorers dwell continually on the innumerable herds they encountered
while on these plains, both when travelling up-stream and again the
following year when they were returning. The antelopes were sometimes
quite shy; so were the bighorn; though on occasions both kinds seemed to
lose their wariness, and in one instance the journal specifies the fact
that, at the mouth of the Yellowstone, the deer were somewhat shy, while
the antelope, like the elk and buffalo, paid no heed to the men
whatever. Ordinarily all the kinds of game were very tame. Sometimes one
of the many herds of elk that lay boldly, even at midday, on the
sandbars, or on the brush-covered points, would wait until the explorers
were within twenty yards of them before starting. The buffalo would
scarcely move out of the path at all, and the bulls sometimes, even when
unmolested, threatened to assail the hunters. Once, on the return
voyage, when Clark was descending the Yellowstone River, a vast herd of
buffalo, swimming and wading, plowed its way across the stream where it
was a mile broad, in a column so thick that the explorers had to draw up
on shore and wait for an hour, until it passed by, before continuing
their journey. Two or three times the expedition was thus brought to a
halt; and as the buffalo were so plentiful, and so easy to kill, and as
their flesh was very good, they were the mainstay for the explorers'
table. Both going and returning this wonderful hunting country was a
place of plenty. The party of course lived almost exclusively on meat,
and they needed much; for, when they could get it, they consumed either
a buffalo, or an elk and a deer, or four deer, every day.

First Encounters with the Grizzly Bear.

There was one kind of game which they at times found altogether too
familiar. This was the grizzly bear, which they were the first white men
to discover. They called it indifferently the grizzly, gray, brown, and
even white bear, to distinguish it from its smaller, glossy,
black-coated brother with which they were familiar in the Eastern woods.
They found that the Indians greatly feared these bears, and after their
first encounters they themselves treated them with much respect. The
grizzly was then the burly lord of the Western prairie, dreaded by all
other game, and usually shunned even by the Indians. In consequence it
was very bold and savage. Again and again these huge bears