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.
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