“On opening the cache, we found the bearskins entirely destroyed by the water, which in a flood of the river had penetrated to them.  All the specimens of plants, too, were unfortunately lost:  the chart of the Missouri, however, still remained unhurt, and several articles contained in trunks and boxes had suffered but little injury; but a vial of laudanum had lost its stopper, and the liquid had run into a drawer of medicines, which it spoiled beyond recovery.  The mosquitoes were 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 them there by the fifth of August; if he failed to meet them by that time, they were to go on down the river and meet Captain Clark at the mouth of the Yellowstone.  This explanation is needed to the proper understanding of the narrative that follows; for we now have to keep track of three parties of the explorers.