Trails of the Pathfinders

by George Bird Grinnell

During all this time hunting was going on, for though the explorers had abundant provisions, yet they were supporting themselves as far as possible from the country. Besides the corn which they purchased from the Indians, in exchange for trade goods and bits of iron, they killed buffalo, deer, and elk; and on one hunt, in February, Captain Clark and his party killed forty deer, three buffalo, and sixteen elk. Most of the game was too lean for use, and was left for the wolves. A part, however, was brought to a point on the river, and there protected in pens built of logs, which should keep off the wolves, ravens, and magpies. The next day four men were sent with sleds and three horses, to bring in the meat. They returned that night stating that a party of one hundred men had rushed upon them, cut the traces of the sleds and carried off two of the horses, the third being left them through the influence of one of the Indians. The Indians had also taken some of the men’s arms. An effort was made to pursue these enemies, who were believed to be Sioux, and Captain Lewis, with a few Mandans, set out on their trail. This was followed for two or three days, until at last it turned off into the prairie. The supposition that these robbers were Sioux was confirmed by finding some moccasins that had been thrown away, though the Sioux had dropped some corn in one place, apparently with the hope of making it appear that they were Arikaras. Before returning, Captain Clark visited the place where the meat had been cached, and did some more hunting; and, having killed thirty-six deer, fourteen elk, and one wolf, he returned to the fort with about three thousand pounds of meat.

The weather was now growing milder, and preparations began to be made for continuing the journey. Men were sent out to look for trees suitable for canoes. White men began to arrive from the Northwest Company’s post, and also Mr. Gravelines, with Frenchmen from the Arikara village down the river. These brought word that the Rees were willing to make peace with the Mandans and Minnetari, and asked if the Mandans would be willing to have the Arikaras settle near them, and form with them a league against the Sioux. Word was brought that the Sioux who had stolen the explorers’ horses had afterward gone to the Arikara village and told what they had done, and that the Rees were so angry at this that they had declined to give them anything to eat; in other words, had treated them as enemies.

The river broke up late in March, and, as happened every spring, many buffalo were brought down on the floating ice. An interesting description is given of how the Indians killed the buffalo floating down on the cakes of ice, which they dared not leave. The men ran lightly over the loose ice in the river until they had reached the large cake on which the buffalo stood, and, killing it there, then paddled the cake of ice to the shore.

A thunder-storm, accompanied by hail, came on April 1—the breaking up of the winter. And now for several days the explorers were engaged in packing specimens to be sent back to Washington; skins and skeletons of some of the animals of the country, together with a number of articles of Indian dress, arms, implements, tobacco seed, and corn, with specimens of some plants. Arrangements were made also for some of the chiefs of the Rees to visit the President; and a delegation from the Rees made a peace with the Mandans.

The explorers were now ready to continue their journey, and left the fort the afternoon of April 7. The party consisted of thirty-two persons, including the interpreters, one of whom was accompanied by his wife. At the same time their large boat, manned by seven soldiers and two Frenchmen, set out down the river for the distant United States.

The journey up the river was slow, and it would be too long to tell of all they saw—things then new to all, but now common enough. The prairie and the river bottom swarmed with game—herds of buffalo, elk, antelope, with some deer and wolves. As they went along they saw a nest of geese built “in the tops of lofty cottonwood trees,” an interesting fact in natural history, rediscovered more than fifty years later by an enterprising ornithologist. From time to time, as they passed up the river, they passed small abandoned encampments of Indians, at one of which, “from the hoops of small kegs found in them, we judged could belong to Assiniboines only, as they are the only Missouri Indians who use spirituous liquors. Of these they are so passionately fond that it forms their chief inducement to visit the British on the Assiniboine, to whom they barter for kegs of rum their dried and pounded meat, their grease, and the skins of large and small wolves, and small foxes; the dangerous exchange is transported to their camps, with their friends and relations, and soon exhausted in brutal intoxication. So far from considering drunkenness as disgraceful, the women and children are permitted and invited to share in these excesses with their husbands and fathers, who boast how often their skill and industry as hunters have supplied them with the means of intoxication; in this, as in other habits and customs, they resemble the Sioux, from whom they are descended.”

The recent presence of the Assiniboines on the river had made the game scarce and shy, and it was so early in the season that the animals killed were very thin in flesh, and almost useless for food. Beaver, however, were numerous, and seemed larger and fatter, and with darker and better fur, than any seen hitherto. They were now in the country of abundant buffalo, and the calves had already begun to make their appearance. On April 26 they reached the mouth of the Yellowstone River, “known to the French as La Roche Jaune.” Game was so plenty that it was scarcely necessary to hunt, and they killed only what was needed for food. The river banks were lined with dead buffalo; some partly devoured by wolves. The buffalo had evidently been drowned in crossing, either by breaking through the ice or being unable to clamber from the water when landing under some high bluff.

On April 29 Captain Lewis met his first grizzly bear, which the explorers call white bears. “Of the strength and ferocity of this animal the Indians had given us dreadful accounts; they never attack him but in parties of six or eight persons, and even then are often defeated, with the loss of one or more of the 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; and 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 man; and such is the terror 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 we had seen did not appear desirous of encountering us, but although to a skilful rifleman the danger is very much diminished, 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 Captain Lewis and pursued him for seventy or eighty yards; but, being badly wounded, he 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.”

The curiosity of the antelope is spoken of as being often the occasion of its easy destruction. “When they first see the hunters they run with great velocity; if he lies down on the ground and lifts up his arm, his hat or his foot, they return with a light trot to look at the object, and sometimes go and return two or three times, till they approach within reach of the rifle. So, too, they sometimes leave their flock to go and look at the wolves, which crouch down, and, if the antelope is frightened at first, repeat the same manœuver, and sometimes relieve each other till they decoy it from the party, when they seize it. But generally the wolves take them as they are crossing the rivers; for, although swift on foot, they are not good swimmers.”

As the party struggled on up the Missouri they passed the mouth of the Porcupine River, so-called from the unusual number of porcupines seen near it. They continued to see vast quantities of buffalo, elk, and deer—principally of the long-tailed kind—with antelope, beaver, geese, ducks, and swans. As they went on, the game became much tamer. The male buffalo would scarcely give way to them, and as the white men drew near, looked at them for a moment and then quietly began to graze again.