e
so troublesome that it was impossible even to write without a mosquito
bier. The buffalo were leaving us fast, on their way to the southeast."

One of the party met with an amusing adventure here, which is thus
described:--

"At night M'Neal, who had been sent in the morning to examine the cache
at the lower end of the portage, returned; but had been prevented from
reaching that place by a singular adventure. Just as he arrived near
Willow run, he approached a thicket of brush in which was a white bear,
which he did not discover till he was within ten feet of him. His horse
started, and wheeling suddenly round, threw M'Neal almost immediately
under the bear, which started up instantly. Finding the bear raising
himself on his hind feet to attack him, he struck him on the head with
the butt end of his musket; the blow was so violent that it broke the
breech of the musket and knocked the bear to the ground. Before he
recovered M'Neal, seeing a willow-tree close by, sprang up, and there
remained while the bear closely guarded the foot of the tree until late
in the afternoon. He then went off; M'Neal being released came down,
and having found his horse, which had strayed off to the distance of
two miles, returned to camp. These animals are, indeed, of a most
extraordinary ferocity, and it is matter of wonder that in all our
encounters we have had the good fortune to escape. We are now
troubled with another enemy, not quite so dangerous, though even more
disagreeable-these are the mosquitoes, who now infest us in such myriads
that we frequently get them into our throats when breathing, and the dog
even howls with the torture they occasion."

The intention of Captain Lewis was to reach the river sometimes known as
Maria's, and sometimes as Marais, or swamp. This stream rises near the
boundary between Montana and the British possessions, and flows into the
Missouri, where the modern town of Ophir is built. The men left at the
great falls were to dig up the canoes and baggage that had been cached
there the previous year, and be ready to carry around the portage of
the falls the stuff that would be brought from the two forks of the
Jefferson, later on, by Sergeant Ordway and his party. It will be
recollected that this stuff had also been cached at the forks of the
Jefferson, the year before. The two parties, thus united, were to go
down to the entrance of Maria's River into the Missouri, and Captain
Lewis expected to join th