who had been ordered to come with the horses here to assist in procuring meat for the voyage, as it had been calculated that the canoes would reach this place much sooner than Captain Lewis’s party.  After a very heavy shower of rain and hail, attended with violent thunder and lightning, we started from the point, and giving a final discharge to our horses, went over to the island where we had left our red pirogue, which, however, we found much decayed, and we had no means of repairing her.  We therefore took all the iron work out of her, and, proceeding down the river fifteen miles, encamped near some cottonwood trees, one of which was of the narrow-leafed species, and the first of that kind we had remarked in ascending the river.

“Sergeant Ordway’s party, which had left the mouth of Madison River on the thirteenth, had descended in safety to White Bear Island, where he arrived on the nineteenth, and, after collecting the baggage, had left the falls on the twenty-seventh in the white pirogue and five canoes, while Sergeant Gass and Willard set out at the same time by land with the horses, and thus fortunately met together.”

Sergeant Ordway’s party, it will be recollected, had left Captain Clark at the three forks of the Missouri, to which they had come down the Jefferson, and thence had passed down the Missouri to White Bear Islands, and, making the portage, had joined the rest of the party just in time to reinforce them.  Game was now abundant the buffalo being in enormous herds; and the bighorn were also numerous; the flesh of these animals was in fine condition, resembling the best of mutton in flavor.  The reunited party now descended the river, the intention being to reach the mouth of the Yellowstone as soon as possible, and there wait for Captain Clark, who, it will be recalled, was to explore that stream and meet them at the point of its junction with the Missouri.  The voyage of Captain Lewis and his men was without startling incident, except that Cruzatte accidentally shot the captain, one day, while they were out hunting.  The wound was through the fleshy part of the left thigh, and for a time was very painful.  As Cruzatte was not in sight when the captain was hit, the latter naturally thought he had been shot by Indians hiding in the thicket.  He reached camp as best he could, and, telling his men to arm themselves, he explained that he had been shot by Indians.  But when Cruzatte came into camp, mutual explanations satisfied all hands that a misunderstanding had arisen and that Cruzatte’s unlucky shot was accidental.  As an example of the experience of the party about this time, while they were on their way down the Missouri, we take this extract from their journal:—­