thick, fine, and would have furnished five pounds of wool, of which we have no doubt an excellent cloth might be made. Our game to-day was a beaver, a deer, an elk, and some geese."

The Expedition, by the indications in the current of the river, now began to near the great watercourse which the French called the Jaune, or Yellow, River. Hitherto, what is now known as the Yellowstone, which, rising in the Rockies, in the northwestern section of Wyoming, and, after a course of one thousand two hundred, or one thousand three hundred miles, flows through Montana and joins the Missouri in North Dakota near the frontier of Montana, was practically unknown, though it had been heard of from Indian hunters and stray voyageurs, and was now about to be reached and ascended a few miles by the explorers. Here the party encamped for a little while at the foot of the bluffs, at the junction of the two rivers, the navigation of the Missouri at this point being slow and toilsome, on account of the rapidity of the current and having to avoid the sandbars which here bestrew the river. Game was here found plentiful, though the party only killed what was necessary for immediate subsistence. "For several days past," observes the Journal under date April 27, "we have seen great numbers of buffalo lying dead along the shore, some of them partly devoured by the wolves. They have either sunk through the ice during the winter, or been drowned in attempting to cross; or else, after crossing to some high bluff, have found themselves too much exhausted either to ascend or swim back again

and perished for want of food; in this situation we found several small parties of them. There are geese, too, in abundance, and more bald eagles than we have hitherto observed; the nests of these last being always accompanied by those of two or three magpies, who are their inseparable attendants."

CHAPTER V

AMONG WOLVES, GRIZZLIES, AND BUFFALO, TO THE FALLS OF THE MISSOURI

AFTER passing the entrance of the Yellowstone, the Expedition proceeded onward, up the now muddy Missouri, which from its many rapids and other obstructions in the stream the party found the passage toilsome and fatiguing. Here, in many parts of the river, the boats, they found, could not be propelled with the oars, and hence they were necessitated to draw them with tow-lines from the banks. The difficulties of navigation were, however, in much measure relieved by the sport found in the region, the game here, in the neighborhood of the foot-hills of the Rockies which they had now reached, being increasingly plentiful and at times excitingly risky to kill. This was especially the case in encounters with bruin, one of which is described in the Journal at the close of April (1805). Here is the record of the previous day's sport:

Captain Lewis, who was on shore with one hunter, met, about eight o'clock, two white bears. Of the strength and ferocity of these animals the Indians had given us dreadful accounts. They never attack the bear but in parties of six or eight persons, and even then are often defeated with a loss of one or more of their party. Having no weapons but bows

and arrows, and the bad guns with which the traders supply them, they are obliged to approach very near to the bear; as no wound except through the head or heart is mortal, they frequently fall a sacrifice if they miss their aim. He rather attacks than avoids a man, and such is the terror which he has inspired, that the Indians who go in quest of him paint themselves, and perform all the superstitious rites customary when they make war on a neighboring nation. Hitherto, those bears we had seen did not appear desirous of encountering us; but although to a skilful rifleman the danger is much diminished, yet the white bear is still a terrible animal. On approaching these two, both Captain Lewis and the hunter fired, and each wounded a bear. One of them made his escape; the other turned upon Lewis and pursued him seventy or eighty yards, but being badly wounded the bear could not run so fast as to prevent him from reloading his piece, which he again aimed at him, and a third shot from the hunter brought him to the ground. He was a male, not quite full grown, and weighed about three hundred pounds. The legs are somewhat longer than those of the black bear, and the talons and tusks are much larger and longer. Its color is a yellowish-brown; the eyes are small, black, and piercing; the front of the forelegs near the feet is usually black, and the fur is finer, thicker, and deeper than that of the black bear. Add to which, it is a more furious animal, and very remarkable for the wounds which it will bear without dying."

The other game met with in the region included

elk, deer, buffalo, beaver, porcupine, and antelope, together with ducks, geese, and some swans. Wolves were also met with, of the variety now known as the coyote, a fleet, sly, but in the main cowardly, animal. Here is the Journal's observa

tions on them:

"The ears are large, erect, and pointed; the head is long and also pointed, like that of the fox; the tail long and bushy; the hair and fur are of a pale reddish-brown color, though much coarser than that of the fox; the eye is of a deep sea-green color, small and piercing; the talons are rather longer than those of the wolf of the Atlantic States, which animal, as far as we can perceive, is not to be found on this side of the Platte. These wolves usually associate in bands of ten or twelve, and are rarely, if ever, seen alone, not being able singly to attack a deer or antelope. They live and rear their young in burrows, which they fix near some pass or spot much frequented by game, and sally out in a body against any animal which they think they can overpower; but on the slightest alarm retreat to their burrows, making a noise exactly like that of a small dog.

A second species is lower, shorter in the legs, and thicker than the Atlantic wolf; the color, which is not affected by the seasons, is of every variety of shade, from a gray or blackish-brown to a creamcolored white. They do not burrow, nor do they bark, but howl; they frequent the woods and plains, and skulk along the skirts of the buffalo herds, in order to attack the weary or wounded."

By this time, the explorers, being now well within