t Benton later was to stand,
when Lewis and his men met them. That was what I call good luck, and a
whole lot of it! Just look where they had been and what they had been
through!

"Well, now, part of our men had got together. Lewis and his companions
cut loose their horses on the plains. They all hurried into the canoes
and dropped down to the mouth of the Marias. Here they abandoned the
rest of their horses. They dug up the _cache_ which they had left here
in the previous year. This _cache_ also was pretty badly damaged, but
they got some stuff out of it. Indeed, some of the _caches_ were in good
condition, although the big red boat they had left was no longer of any
use. They stripped her of her iron and set out by canoes, as soon as
they could, because by that time they did not know what the Indians
would be apt to do to them.

"Now they got down to the mouth of the Milk River on August 4th, and
they reached the mouth of the Yellowstone on August 7th. And there what
do you suppose they found? Was Clark there ahead of them, or was Lewis
to wait for Clark?"

"I know!" said Jesse. "Clark beat them down. He left a letter for them,
didn't he?"

"That's just what he did, and this time he didn't leave it on a green
stick for a beaver to carry off, either.

"No, just as if he had stepped to a post-office window and asked for a
letter, Lewis found this note awaiting him, telling him Clark had been
there for several days and would wait for them a few miles down the
river, on the right-hand side. They were at this time making ninety
miles a day--one hundred miles on the last day of their travels.

"Now it would seem that Clark was taking a good many chances, because
all he had done was to write a note which might have been lost, and to
scratch a few words in the sand which might have been washed out. But
the luck of Lewis held until August 11th. On that day, as you remember,
he was accidentally shot through the hips by one of his men while
hunting elk, so that when, on August 12th, he finally overtook Captain
Clark, Lewis was lying in his boat, crippled. All through the trip Lewis
had had many more dangerous situations and narrow escapes than Clark
had.

"In this way, traveling many times faster coming east than they had
going west, these two young men, and all of their widely scattered
parties, met in this singular reunion, at no place in particular,
without ever having had any reason in particular for hoping they eve