The Men Were Now (In The Middle Of May) Greatly Troubled With Boils,
Abscesses, And Inflamed Eyes, Caused By The Poison Of The Alkali
That Covered Much Of The Ground And Corrupted The Water.
Here Is An Entry In The Journal Of May 11:
-
"About five in the afternoon one of our men [Bratton], who had been
afflicted with boils and suffered to walk on shore, came running to
the boats with loud cries, and every symptom of terror and distress.
For some time after we had taken him on board he was so much out
of breath as to be unable to describe the cause of his anxiety;
but he at length told us that about a mile and a half below he had
shot a brown bear, which immediately turned and was in close pursuit
of him; but the bear being badly wounded could not overtake him.
Captain Lewis, with seven men, immediately went in search of him;
having found his track they followed him by the blood for a mile,
found him concealed in some thick brushwood, and shot him with two
balls through the skull. Though somewhat smaller than that killed
a few days ago, he was a monstrous animal, and a most terrible enemy.
Our man had shot him through the centre of the lungs; yet he had pursued
him furiously for half a mile, then returned more than twice that distance,
and with his talons prepared himself a bed in the earth two feet
deep and five feet long; he was perfectly alive when they found him,
which was at least two hours after he had received the wound.
The wonderful power of life which these animals possess renders
them dreadful; their very track in the mud or sand, which we have
sometimes found eleven inches long and seven and one-fourth wide,
exclusive of the talons, is alarming; and we had rather encounter
two Indians than meet a single brown bear. There is no chance of
killing them by a single shot unless the ball goes through the brain,
and this is very difficult on account of two large muscles which cover
the side of the forehead and the sharp projection of the centre
of the frontal bone, which is also thick.
"Our camp was on the south, at the distance of sixteen miles from that of
last night. The fleece and skin of the bear were a heavy burden for two men,
and the oil amounted to eight gallons."
The name of the badly-scared Bratton was bestowed upon a creek
which discharges into the Missouri near the scene of this encounter.
Game continued to be very abundant. On the fourteenth, according to
the journal, the hunters were hunted, to their great discomfiture.
The account says: -
"Toward evening the men in the hindmost canoes discovered a large
brown [grizzly] bear lying in the open grounds, about three
hundred paces from the river. Six of them, all good hunters,
immediately went to attack him, and concealing themselves
by a small eminence came unperceived within forty paces of him.
Four of the hunters now fired, and each lodged a ball
in his body, two of them directly through the lungs.
The furious animal sprang up and ran open-mouthed upon them.
"As he came near, the two hunters who had reserved their fire
gave him two wounds, one of which, breaking his shoulder,
retarded his motion for a moment; but before they could reload
he was so near that they were obliged to run to the river,
and before they had reached it he had almost overtaken them.
Two jumped into the canoe; the other four separated, and, concealing
themselves in the willows, fired as fast as they could reload.
They struck him several times, but, instead of weakening the monster,
each shot seemed only to direct him towards the hunters,
till at last he pursued two of them so closely that they threw
aside their guns and pouches, and jumped down a perpendicular
bank of twenty feet into the river: the bear sprang after them,
and was within a few feet of the hindmost, when one of the hunters
on shore shot him in the head, and finally killed him.
They dragged him to the shore, and found that eight balls
had passed through him in different directions. The bear
was old, and the meat tough, so that they took the skin only,
and rejoined us at camp, where we had been as much terrified
by an accident of a different kind.
"This was the narrow escape of one of our canoes, containing all
our papers, instruments, medicine, and almost every article indispensable
for the success of our enterprise. The canoe being under sail,
a sudden squall of wind struck her obliquely and turned her considerably.
The man at the helm, who was unluckily the worst steersman of the party,
became alarmed, and, instead of putting her before the wind, luffed her up
into it. The wind was so high that it forced the brace of the square-sail out
of the hand of the man who was attending it, and instantly upset the canoe,
which would have been turned bottom upward but for the resistance made
by the awning. Such was the confusion on board, and the waves ran so high,
that it was half a minute before she righted, and then nearly full of water,
but by bailing her out she was kept from sinking until they rowed ashore.
Besides the loss of the lives of three men, who, not being able to swim,
would probably have perished, we should have been deprived of nearly
everything necessary for our purposes, at a distance of between two and
three thousand miles from any place where we could supply the deficiency."
Fortunately, there was no great loss from this accident, which was caused
by the clumsiness and timidity of the steersman, Chaboneau. Captain Lewis's
account of the incident records that the conduct of Chaboneau's wife,
Sacajawea, was better than that of her cowardly husband.
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