After Going Up The Wisdom River, Clark's Party Were Overtaken
By Drewyer, Lewis's Hunter, Who Had Been Sent Across Between
The Forks To Notify Clark That Lewis Regarded The Other Fork -
The Main Jefferson - As The Right Course To Take.
The party,
accordingly, turned about and began to descend the stream,
in order to ascend the Jefferson.
The journal says: -
"On going down, one of the canoes upset and two others filled
with water, by which all the baggage was wet and several articles were
irrecoverably lost. As one of them swung round in a rapid current,
Whitehouse was thrown out of her; while down, the canoe passed over him,
and had the water been two inches shallower would have crushed
him to pieces; but he escaped with a severe bruise of his leg.
In order to repair these misfortunes we hastened [down] to the forks,
where we were joined by Captain Lewis. We then passed over to the left
[east] side, opposite the entrance of the rapid fork, and camped
on a large gravelly bar, near which there was plenty of wood.
Here we opened, and exposed to dry, all the articles which had
suffered from the water; none of them were completely spoiled except
a small keg of powder; the rest of the powder, which was distributed
in the different canoes, was quite safe, although it had been under
the water for upward of an hour. The air is indeed so pure and dry
that any wood-work immediately shrinks, unless it is kept filled
with water; but we had placed our powder in small canisters of lead,
each containing powder enough for the canister when melted into bullets,
and secured with cork and wax, which answered our purpose perfectly.
. . . . . . . .
In the evening we killed three deer and four elk, which furnished
us once more with a plentiful supply of meat.
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