Away hastened Captain Lewis and the seven men. All eyes scanned the shore, and many tongues plied the exhausted hunter with questions. He said that after shooting the bear he had run a mile and a half, with the bear roaring and floundering behind him, but unable quite to overtake him because of its wound.
In about an hour back came the hunting party, into camp—Alec Willard and John Shields, who were the two largest members, weighted down with an enormous hide and a great quantity of fat.
They all said that after following Bratton’s trail back, for a mile, they had come upon the bloody trail of the bear. He had turned aside and had gone another mile, until he had stopped, to dig a hole or bed two feet deep and five feet long. There they had killed him.
“An’ he ought to’ve been dead long before,” declared John Shields. “Bratton had shot him straight through the chest. He was a tough one.”
“Faith, as the cap’n says, it’s safer to fight two Injuns together than wan white b’ar by hisself,” proclaimed Pat.
The fat of this bear yielded eight gallons of oil, for greasing the guns and keeping the men’s hair slick.
On the third day after, six of the men had a pitched battle with another bear. He put them all to flight—almost caught several of them; and did not fall until he had been shot eight times. And while this was going on at the shore, Cruzatte’s canoe, out in the stream, narrowly escaped a fatal upset.
A gust of wind struck the sail, while Chaboneau was steering. Chaboneau lost his head, dropped the oar, began to cry aloud with fright. The canoe tilted, tilted, water flowed in—and over on its side turned the boat. The sail’s rope had been jerked out of Cruzatte’s hand.
“Seize de rudder, Toussaint! Ketch de rope—queeck! Pull on de sail! We all drown! Do de right t’ing or I shoot you!” ordered Cruzatte, scrambling along the gunwale.
Only young Sa-ca-ja-we-a was calm. Holding her baby, she reached right and left and gathered the articles that were floating off. In a moment more the canoe righted, but was full of water. Baling and rowing, the men got her beached just in time.