onfident hope of succeeding in a voyage which had formed a darling
project of mine for the last ten years, I could but esteem this moment
of our departure as among the most happy of my life."

April 26th they came to the mouth of the Yellowstone River, which
enters the Missouri 1888 miles above St. Louis. They had had no
adventure of moment; neither was there cause for immediate anxiety,
save as they observed signs of the Assiniboins. From the tribes with
whom they had talked at winter quarters, they had heard stirring tales
of this cut-throat band, which had inspired the wish to pass unobserved
through their country. This desire was fulfilled. There was no meeting
with the Assiniboins.

Of all the wild creatures of the Western wilderness, the one which
could least be spared from the literature of adventure is the grizzly
bear. Lewis and Clark were the first white men to give an account of
this beast. Many of the Indian lodge-tales to which they had listened
rang with the fame of the grizzly, as a background for the greater fame
of the narrators. As a matter of course, fact and figment were
inextricably blended in these tales; but, while they did not show the
animal as it was, they could not exaggerate its untamable courage, its
ferocity, or its rugged power of endurance. On April 29th, Captain
Lewis, with a party of hunters, proved the truth of all that had been
told him upon these points, and more; and upon many occasions
thereafter, while the party was making its way from the Yellowstone
country to the mountains, there were encounters from which the men
escaped by mere good fortune. The most critical adventures with the
Indians were but child's play in comparison. Despite their boasting,
the Indians would seldom venture to provoke a fight with a grizzly,
except in the most favorable circumstances, and when strength of
numbers inspired them with bravado. Reckless and headlong as wild
elephants, nothing would daunt the grizzlies, once they had set about
fighting; and so hardy were they as often to escape, apparently
unharmed, though their vital parts were riddled with lead.

Until the Rocky Mountains were reached, there was almost no hardship
arising from scarcity of food. Early in May, Captain Lewis wrote that
game of all sorts abounded, being so gentle as to take no alarm of the
hunters. "The male buffalo particularly will hardly give way to us, and
as we approach will merely look at us for a moment, as something n