see an Indian running off with it. Drawing his pistol he rushed after the Indian, who finally threw the gun down. They had saved their rifles, but their horses were now in danger. Lewis ordered the men to pursue the main party, who were driving off most of the horses. He himself, bareheaded, ran after two Indians who were escaping with another horse. He shouted breathlessly that unless they returned it he would shoot, and shoot he did, wounding one of the Indians, who fired at him. "The shot had nearly been fatal, for Captain Lewis felt the wind of the ball very distinctly."

The result of this little battle was wholly favorable to the explorers. They lost one horse, but captured four Indian horses and some shields, bows, quivers, and one gun which the Indians left in the camp. The Indian killed by Fields was the one to whom they had presented a medal the day before, and this they left around his neck, "that they might be informed who we were." The patience and adroitness of the explorers had kept them almost wholly free from serious.

trouble with the Indians. In this case they were forced to act in self-defense.

Very naturally they lost no time in starting on, fearing immediate pursuit by a larger band, but they made the journey back to the falls of the Missouri in safety.

Lewis and his reunited party, who had been joined by Sergeant Ordway and his men, passed around the falls and hastened down the river. At the mouth of the Yellowstone they found a note from Captain Clark, who was waiting a few miles below. But before they overtook him their leader, Captain Lewis, narrowly escaped death. Landing with the canoeman, Cruzatte, to hunt some elk, they took different routes. "Just as Captain Lewis was taking aim at an elk, a ball struck him in the left thigh, about an inch below the joint of the hip, and, missing the bone, went through the left thigh, and grazed the right to the depth of the ball. It instantly occurred to him that Cruzatte must have shot him by mistake for an elk, as he was dressed in brown leather, and Cruzatte had not a very good eyesight."

He called to Cruzatte, but received no answer. Fearing an Indian ambush he pluckily made his way to the boat, shouting to Cruzatte to retreat. He reached the boat, and, wounded as he was, bravely led the men. back to relieve Cruzatte. After a hundred steps his wound made it impossible for him. to go on. Without thought of a guard for himself, he sent the men on, and "limping back to the boat, he prepared himself with his rifle, a pistol, and the air-gun, to sell his life dearly in case the men should be overcome."

After all, it was a false alarm as regarded the Indians. It was Cruzatte himself who had shot Captain Lewis. He had seen the brown suit and had mistaken him for an elk.

The suffering of Captain Lewis was none. the less real as he lay in the bottom of the pirogue while they went on to overtake Captain Clark. On August 12 they met two fur traders from Illinois, and on the same day they joined Captain Clark, near the mouth of Little Knife Creek, and the whole party were reunited.

CHAPTER XVIII

CAPTAIN CLARK'S ADVENTURES

Crossing to the Yellowstone. The last glimpse of the Rockies. Buffalo and bears. Reaching the Missouri. Attacked by mosquitoes. Pryor loses the horses. Bitten by a wolf. The whole party reunited.

We must go back for more than a month to begin the story of Clark's exploration of the Yellowstone River. He had parted from the others on July 3 at Traveler's Rest Creek in the Bitter Root Mountains in western Montana. With fifteen men and Sacajawea, her child, and fifty horses, they traveled along Clark's River. On July 4, having made sixteen miles, "we halted at an early hour for the pose of doing honor to the birthday of our country's independence. The festival was not very splendid, for it consisted of a mush made of cows [cowish] roots and a saddle of venison, nor had we anything to tempt us to prolong it."

pur

In passing from the present Missoula County, Montana, to Beaverhead County they crossed a hill which divides the flow of water to the Atlantic from that to the Pacific. They discovered some of the hot sulphur springs which have since become so familiar. At the forks of the Jefferson they opened the cache made in August, 1805, and found the hidden goods and canoes generally in excellent condition. In their descent of the Jefferson they saw "innumerable quantities of beaver and otter, [and] the bushes of the low grounds are a favorite resort for deer, while on the higher parts of the valley are seen scattered groups of antelopes, and still further, on the steep sides of the mountains, we observed many of the big horn which take refuge there from the wolves and bear." This was to the westward of the present Bannock City.

When they reached the mouth of Madison River, Clark sent Sergeant Ordway and nine men on down the Missouri to overtake Lewis and the others. Clark himself, with ten men and Sacajawea, her baby, and fifty horses, set