As They Were Now Entering A Region Where Foes Might Be Lying In
Wait On Either Bank, It Was Determined, In Hunting For Game, To
Confine Themselves Principally To The Islands, Which Sometimes
Extend To Considerable Length, And Are Beautifully Wooded,
Affording Abundant Pasturage And Shade.
On one of these they
killed three buffaloes and two elks, and halting on the edge of a
beautiful prairie, made a sumptuous hunter's repast.
They had not
long resumed their boats and pulled along the river banks when
they descried a canoe approaching, navigated by two men, whom, to
their surprise, they ascertained to be white men. They proved to
be two of those strange and fearless wanderers of the wilderness,
the trappers. Their names were Benjamin Jones and Alexander
Carson. They had been for two years past hunting and trapping
near the head of the Missouri, and were thus floating for
thousands of miles in a cockle-shell, down a turbulent stream,
through regions infested by savage tribes, yet apparently as easy
and unconcerned as if navigating securely in the midst of
civilization.
The acquisition of two such hardy, experienced, and dauntless
hunters was peculiarly desirable at the present moment. They
needed but little persuasion. The wilderness is the home of the
trapper; like the sailor, he cares but little to which point of
the compass he steers; and Jones and Carson readily abandoned
their voyage to St. Louis, and turned their faces towards the
Rocky Mountains and the Pacific.
The two naturalists, Mr. Bradbury and Mr. Nuttall, who had
joined the expedition at St. Louis, still accompanied it, and
pursued their researches on all occasions.
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