第28章

"Here the country assumed a totally different aspect: the hills retired on both sides from the river, which spreads to more than three times its former size, and is filled with a number of small handsome islands covered with cottonwood. The low grounds on its banks are again wide, fertile, and enriched with trees: those on the north are particularly wide, the hills being comparatively low, and opening into three large valleys, which extend themselves for a considerable distance towards the north.

These appearances of vegetation are delightful after the dreary hills among which we have passed; and we have now to congratulate ourselves at having escaped from the last ridges of the Black Mountains. On leaving Thompson's Creek we passed two small islands, and at twenty-three miles' distance encamped among some timber; on the north, opposite to a small creek, which we named Bull Creek. The bighorn are in great quantities, and must bring forth their young at a very early season, as they are now half grown.

One of the party saw a large bear also; but, being at a distance from the river, and having no timber to conceal him, he would not venture to fire."

A curious adventure happened on the twenty-eighth, of which the journal, next day, makes this mention:--"Last night we were alarmed by a new sort of enemy.

A buffalo swam over from the opposite side, and to the spot where lay one of our canoes, over which he clambered to the shore: then, taking fright, he ran full speed up the bank towards our fires, and passed within eighteen inches of the heads of some of the men before the sentinel could make him change his course.

Still more alarmed, he ran down between four fires, and within a few inches of the heads of a second row of the men, and would have broken into our lodge if the barking of the dog had not stopped him. He suddenly turned to the right, and was out of sight in a moment, leaving us all in confusion, every one seizing his rifle and inquiring the cause of the alarm.

On learning what had happened, we had to rejoice at suffering no more injury than some damage to the guns that were in the canoe which the buffalo crossed.

"We passed an island and two sand-bars, and at the distance of two and a half miles came to a handsome river, which discharges itself on the South, and which we ascended to the distance of a mile and a half: we called it Judith's River. It rises in the Rocky Mountains, in about the same place with the Musselshell, and near the Yellowstone River. Its entrance is one hundred yards wide from one bank to the other, the water occupying about seventy-five yards, and being in greater quantity than that of the Musselshell River. . . . There were great numbers of the argalea, or bighorned animals, in the high country through which it passes, and of beaver in its waters.

Just above the entrance of it we saw the ashes of the fires of one hundred and twenty-six lodges, which appeared to have been deserted about twelve or fifteen days."

Leaving Judith's River, named for a sweet Virginia lass, the explorers sailed, or were towed, seventeen miles up the river, where they camped at the mouth of a bold, running river to which they gave the name of Slaughter River. The stream is now known as the Arrow; the appropriateness of the title conferred on the stream by Lewis and Clark appears from the story which they tell of their experience just below "Slaughter River," as follows:

"On the north we passed a precipice about one hundred and twenty feet high, under which lay scattered the fragments of at least one hundred carcasses of buffaloes, although the water which had washed away the lower part of the hill must have carried off many of the dead.

These buffaloes had been chased down the precipice in a way very common on the Missouri, by which vast herds are destroyed in a moment.

The mode of hunting is to select one of the most active and fleet young men, who is disguised by a buffalo-skin round his body; the skin of the head with the ears and horns being fastened on his own head in such a way as to deceive the buffalo. Thus dressed, he fixes himself at a convenient distance between a herd of buffalo and any of the river precipices, which sometimes extend for some miles.

His companions in the mean time get in the rear and side of the herd, and at a given signal show themselves and advance toward the buffaloes.

These instantly take the alarm, and finding the hunters beside them, they run toward the disguised Indian or decoy, who leads them on at full speed toward the river; when, suddenly securing himself in some crevice of the cliff which he had previously fixed on, the herd is left on the brink of the precipice. It is then in vain for the foremost buffaloes to retreat or even to stop; they are pressed on by the hindmost rank, which, seeing no danger but from the hunters, goad on those before them till the whole are precipitated, and the shore is strewn with their dead bodies.

Sometimes, in this perilous seduction, the Indian is himself either trodden under foot by the rapid movements of the buffaloes, or missing his footing in the cliff is urged down the precipice by the falling herd.

The Indians then select as much meat as they wish; the rest is abandoned to the wolves, and creates a most dreadful stench.

The wolves which had been feasting on these carcasses were very fat, and so gentle that one of them was killed with an espontoon."[1]

[1] A short spear.

The dryness and purity of the air roused the admiration of the explorers, who noticed that the woodwork of the cases of their instruments shrank, and the joints opened, although the wood was old and perfectly seasoned.

A tablespoonful of water, exposed to the air in an open saucer, would wholly evaporate in thirty-six hours, when the thermometer did not mark higher than the "Temperate" point at the warmest hour of the day.

Contrary to their expectations, they had not yet met with any Indians, although they saw many signs of their having recently been in that vicinity.

The journal says: