After a very heavy shower of rain and hail, attended with violent thunder and lightning, we started from the point, and giving a final discharge to our horses, went over to the island where we had left our red pirogue, which, however, we found much decayed, and we had no means of repairing her. We therefore took all the iron work out of her, and, proceeding down the river fifteen miles, encamped near some cottonwood trees, one of which was of the narrow-leafed species, and the first of that kind we had remarked in ascending the river.
"Sergeant Ordway's party, which had left the mouth of Madison River on the thirteenth, had descended in safety to White Bear Island, where he arrived on the nineteenth, and, after collecting the baggage, had left the falls on the twenty-seventh in the white pirogue and five canoes, while Sergeant Gass and Willard set out at the same time by land with the horses, and thus fortunately met together."
Sergeant Ordway's party, it will be recollected, had left Captain Clark at the three forks of the Missouri, to which they had come down the Jefferson, and thence had passed down the Missouri to White Bear Islands, and, ****** the portage, had joined the rest of the party just in time to reinforce them.
Game was now abundant the buffalo being in enormous herds; and the bighorn were also numerous; the flesh of these animals was in fine condition, resembling the best of mutton in flavor.
The reunited party now descended the river, the intention being to reach the mouth of the Yellowstone as soon as possible, and there wait for Captain Clark, who, it will be recalled, was to explore that stream and meet them at the point of its junction with the Missouri. The voyage of Captain Lewis and his men was without startling incident, except that Cruzatte accidentally shot the captain, one day, while they were out hunting.
The wound was through the fleshy part of the left thigh, and for a time was very painful. As Cruzatte 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.