The Winning of the West, Volume 4: Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807Roosevelt, Theodore
History
The Winning of the West, Volume 4: Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807
Roosevelt, Theodore
Northwest, Old -- History; United States -- Territorial expansion; West (U.S.) -- History
were within twenty yards of them before starting. The buffalo would
scarcely move out of the path at all, and the bulls sometimes, even when
unmolested, threatened to assail the hunters. Once, on the return
voyage, when Clark was descending the Yellowstone River, a vast herd of
buffalo, swimming and wading, plowed its way across the stream where it
was a mile broad, in a column so thick that the explorers had to draw up
on shore and wait for an hour, until it passed by, before continuing
their journey. Two or three times the expedition was thus brought to a
halt; and as the buffalo were so plentiful, and so easy to kill, and as
their flesh was very good, they were the mainstay for the explorers'
table. Both going and returning this wonderful hunting country was a
place of plenty. The party of course lived almost exclusively on meat,
and they needed much; for, when they could get it, they consumed either
a buffalo, or an elk and a deer, or four deer, every day.
First Encounters with the Grizzly Bear.
There was one kind of game which they at times found altogether too
familiar. This was the grizzly bear, which they were the first white men
to discover. They called it indifferently the grizzly, gray, brown, and
even white bear, to distinguish it from its smaller, glossy,
black-coated brother with which they were familiar in the Eastern woods.
They found that the Indians greatly feared these bears, and after their
first encounters they themselves treated them with much respect. The
grizzly was then the burly lord of the Western prairie, dreaded by all
other game, and usually shunned even by the Indians. In consequence it
was very bold and savage. Again and again these huge bears 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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