was not in sight when the
captain was hit, the latter naturally thought he had been shot by
Indians hiding in the thicket. He reached camp as best he could, and,
telling his men to arm themselves, he explained that he had been shot by
Indians. But when Cruzatte came into camp, mutual explanations satisfied
all hands that a misunderstanding had arisen and that Cruzatte's unlucky
shot was accidental. As an example of the experience of the party about
this time, while they were on their way down the Missouri, we take this
extract from their journal:--

"We again saw great numbers of buffalo, elk, antelope, deer, and wolves;
also eagles and other birds, among which were geese and a solitary
pelican, neither of which can fly at present, as they are now shedding
the feathers of their wings. We also saw several bears, one of them the
largest, except one, we had ever seen; for he measured nine feet from
the nose to the extremity of the tail. During the night a violent
storm came on from the northeast with such torrents of rain that we had
scarcely time to unload the canoes before they filled with water. Having
no shelter we ourselves were completely wet to the skin, and the wind
and cold air made our situation very unpleasant."

On the twelfth of August, the Lewis party met with two traders from
Illinois. These men were camped on the northeast side of the river;
they had left Illinois the previous summer, and had been coming up the
Missouri hunting and trapping. Captain Lewis learned from them that
Captain Clark was below; and later in that day the entire expedition was
again united, Captain Clark's party being found at a point near where
Little Knife Creek enters the Missouri River. We must now take up the
narrative of Captain Clark and his adventures on the Yellowstone.

Chapter XXV -- Adventures on the Yellowstone

The route of Captain Clark from the point where he and Captain Lewis
divided their party, was rather more difficult than that pursued by
the Lewis detachment. But the Clark party was larger, being composed of
twenty men and Sacajawea and her baby. They were to travel up the main
fork of Clark's River (sometimes called the Bitter Root), to Ross's
Hole, and then strike over the great continental divide at that point by
way of the pass which he discovered and which was named for him; thence
he was to strike the headwaters of Wisdom River, a stream which this
generation of men knows by the vulgar name of Big