attacked the
explorers of their own accord, when neither molested nor threatened.
They galloped after the hunters when they met them on horseback even in
the open; and they attacked them just as freely when they found them on
foot. To go through the brush was dangerous; again and again one or
another of the party was charged and forced to take to a tree, at the
foot of which the bear sometimes mounted guard for hours before going
off. When wounded the beasts fought with desperate courage, and showed
astonishing tenacity of life, charging any number of assailants, and
succumbing but slowly even to mortal wounds. In one case a bear that was
on shore actually plunged into the water and swam out to attack one of
the canoes as it passed. However, by this time all of the party had
become good hunters, expert in the use of their rifles, and they killed
great numbers of their ursine foes.

Other Brute Enemies.

Nor were the bears their only brute enemies. The rattlesnakes were often
troublesome. Unlike the bears, the wolves were generally timid, and
preyed only on the swarming game: but one night a wolf crept into camp
and seized a sleeper by the hand; when driven off he jumped upon another
man, and was shot by a third. A less intentional assault was committed
by a buffalo bull which one night blundered past the fires, narrowly
escaped trampling on the sleepers, and had the whole camp in an uproar
before it rushed off into the darkness. When hunted the buffalo
occasionally charged; but there was not much danger in their chase.

The Scourge of Mosquitos.

All these larger foes paled into insignificance compared with the
mosquitos. There are very few places on earth where these pests are so
formidable as in the bottom lands of the Missouri, and for weeks and
even months they made the lives of our explorers a torture. No other
danger, whether from hunger or cold, Indians or wild beasts, was so
dreaded by the explorers as these tiny scourges.

Pleasant Life in the Plains Country.

In the Plains country the life of the explorers was very pleasant save
only for the mosquitos and the incessant clouds of driving sand along
the river bottoms. On their journey west through these true happy
hunting grounds they did not meet with any Indians, and their encounters
with the bears were only just sufficiently dangerous to add excitement
to their life. Once or twice they were in peril from cloud bursts, and
they were lamed b