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.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 321 of 362
Words from 98168 to 98448
of 110166
