Now they were continually coming upon new rivers, many of them broad, with swift-flowing currents, and all of them appealing to the love of exploration. The Missouri was their highroad, however, and so they simply stopped to name the different streams they came to. One they passed had a peculiar white color, and Captain Lewis called it the Milk River. The country along this stream was bare for some distance, with gradually rising hills beyond. The game here was very plentiful and the buffaloes were so tame that the men were obliged to drive them away with sticks and stones. The only dangerous animal was the grizzly bear, a beast that never seemed to know when he had had enough of a fight. One evening the men in the canoes saw a large grizzly lying some three hundred paces from the shore. Six of them landed and hid behind a small hillock within forty paces of the bear; four of the hunters fired, and each lodged a ball in the bear's body. The animal sprang up and roared furiously at them. As he came near them the two hunters who had not yet fired gave him two more wounds, one of which broke a shoulder, but before they had time to reload their guns, the bear was so near them that they had to run for the river. He almost overtook them; two jumped into the canoes; the other four separated, and hiding in the willows fired as fast as they could reload their guns. Again and again they shot him, but each time the shots only seemed to attract his attention toward the hunters, until finally he chased two of them so closely that they threw away their guns, and jumped down a steep bank into the river. The bear sprang after them, and was almost on top of the rear man when one of the others on shore shot him in the head, and finally killed him. They dragged him to shore, and found that eight balls had gone through him in different directions. The hunters took the bear's skin back to camp, and there they learned that another adventure had occurred. One of the other canoes, which contained all the provisions, instruments, and numerous other important articles, had been under sail when it was struck on the side by a sudden squall of wind. The man at the helm, who was one of the worst navigators of the party, made the mistake of luffing the boat into the wind. The wind was so high that it forced the brace of the square-sail out of the hand of the man who was holding it, and instantly upset the canoe. The boat would have turned upside down but for the resistance of the canvas awning. The other boats hastened to the rescue, righted the canoe, and by baling her out kept her from sinking. They rowed the canoe to shore and the cargo was saved. Had it been lost the expedition would have been deprived of most of the things that were necessary for its success, at a distance of between two and three thousand miles from any place where they could get supplies.