In those days, buffalo were so numerous that they were a nuisance to travellers; and they were so free from fear of man that they were too familiar with the camps and equipage.
On the first of August we find this entry in the journal of the party:--"The buffalo now appear in vast numbers. A herd happened to be on their way across the river. Such was the multitude of these animals that, though the river, including an island over which they passed, was a mile wide, the herd stretched, as thickly as they could swim, from one side to the other, and the party was obliged to stop for an hour.
They consoled themselves for the delay by killing four of the herd; and then having proceeded for the distance of forty-five miles [in all to-day] to an island, below which two other herds of buffalo, as numerous as the first, soon after crossed the river."
Again, on the very next day, we find this entry:--"The river was now about a mile wide, less rapid, and more divided by islands, and bars of sand and mud, than heretofore; the low grounds, too, were more extensive, and contained a greater quantity of cottonwood, ash, and willows. On the northwest was a low, level plain, and on the southeast some rugged hills, on which we saw, without being able to approach them, some bighorns. Buffalo and elk, as well as their pursuers, the wolves, were in great numbers.
On each side of the river there were several dry beds of streams, but the only one of any considerable size was one to which they gave the name of Ibex River, on the right, about thirty yards wide, and sixteen miles from their encampment of the preceding night.
The bear, which had given them so much trouble at the head of the Missouri, they found equally fierce here. One of these animals, which was on a sand-bar as the boat passed, raised himself on his hind feet, and after looking at the party for a moment, plunged in and swam towards them; but, after receiving three balls in the body, he turned and made for the shore. Towards evening they saw another enter the water to swim across; when Captain Clark directed the boat towards the shore, and just as the animal landed shot it in the head. It proved to be the largest female they had ever seen, and was so old that its tusks were worn quite smooth.
The boats escaped with difficulty between two herds of buffalo that were crossing the river, and came near being again detained by them.
Among the elk of this neighborhood they saw an unusual number of males, while higher up the herds consisted chiefly of females."
It is almost incredible that these wild animals should have been so nearly exterminated by hunters and other rovers of the plains, very soon after travel set in across the continent. The writer of these lines, who crossed the plains to California so lately as 1856, saw buffalo killed for the sake of their tongues, or to give rifle practice to the wayfarers. After the overland railroad was opened, passengers shot buffalo from the car-windows, well knowing that they could not get their game, even if they should kill as they flew by a herd.
There are no buffalo nor elk where millions once roamed almost unmolested.
Early in the afternoon of August 3, the party reached the junction of the Yellowstone and the Missouri, and camped on the same spot where they had pitched their tents on the 26th of April, 1805.
They were nearing the end of their long journey.
But their troubles thickened as they drew near the close of their many miles of travel. The journal for August 4 has this record:--"The camp became absolutely uninhabitable in consequence of the multitude of mosquitoes; the men could not work in preparing skins for clothing, nor hunt in the timbered low grounds; there was no mode of escape, except by going on the sand-bars in the river, where, if the wind should blow, the insects do not venture; but when there is no wind, and particularly at night, when the men have no covering except their worn-out blankets, the pain they suffer is scarcely to be endured.