ARCHIE SATTERFIELD

They continued to see signs of the grizzly, and on April 17 Lewis wrote his attitude toward the Mandans and the feared bear: "tho' we continue to see many tracks of the bear we have seen but very few of them, and those are at a great distance generally runing away from us; I therefore presume that they are extreemly wary and shy; the Indian account of them dose not corrispond with our experience so far."
On April 29 Lewis began his education on them:
“Set out this morning at the usual hour; the wind was moderate; I walked on shore with one man. about 8 A.M. we fell in with two brown or yellow (white) bear; both of which we wounded; one of them made his escape, the other after my firing on him pursued me seventy or eighty yards, but fortunately had been so badly wounded that he was unable to pursue so closely as to prevent my charging my gun; we again repeated our fire and killed him . . . these are all the particulars in which this anamal appeared to me to differ from the black bear; it is a much more furious and formidable anamal, and will frequently pursue the hunter when wounded. it is asstonishing to see the wounds they will bear before they can be put to death. the Indians may well fear this anamal equiped as they generally are with their bows and arrows of indifferent sizees, but in the hands of skillfull riflemen they are by no means as formidable or dangerous as they have been represented."
Oviously, he had learned a little about the grizzlies, but not enough.
On May 5 they killed another bear:
“Capt. Clark and Drewyer [Drouillard] killed the largest brown bear this evening which we have ever seen. it is a most tremendious looking anamal, and extreemly hard to kill notwithstanding he had five balls through his lungs and five others in various parts he swam more than half the distance across the river to a sandbar, & it was at least twenty minutes before he he did not attempt to attack, but fled and made the most tremendous roaring from the moment he was shot."
Tuesday, May 14, 1805, was a bad day. A very bad day. First, they tangled with another grizzly; Lewis described the action:
“In the evening the men in two of the rear canoes discovered a large brown bear lying in the open grounds about 300 paces from the river, and six of them went out to attack him, all good hunters; they took the advantage of a small eminence which concealed them and got within 40 paces of him unperceived, two of them reserved their fires as had been preyiously conserted, four others fired nearly at the same time and put each his bullet through him, two of the balls passed through the both lobes of his lungs, in an instant this monster ran at them with open mouth, the two who had reserved their fires discharged their pieces at him as he came towards them, boath of them struck him, one only slightly and the other fortunately breaking his shoulder, this however only retarded his motion for a moment only, the men unable to reload their guns took flight, the bear pursued and had very nearly overtaken them before reached the river; two of the party betook themselves to a canoe and the others separated and concealed themselves among thewillows, reloaded their pieces, each discharged his piece at him as they had an opportunity they struck him several times again but the guns served only to direct the bear to them, in this manner he pursued two of them seperately so close that they were obliged to throw aside their guns and pouches and throw themselves in the river altho' the bank was nearly twenty feet perpendicular; so enraged was this anamal that he plunged into the river only a few feet behind the second man he compelled to take refuge in the water, when one of thse still remained on shore shot him through the head and finally killed him; they then took him on shore and butchered him when they found eight balls had passed through him in different directions."
The day wasn't over yet. About the same time as the battle with the grizzly, another drama was being enacted in the boats. Both Lewis and Clark were on shore witnessing the near sinking of a pirogue with Charbonneau at the helm instead of Drouillard, who usually commanded it. Since they trusted Drouillard more than any of the other enlisted men, they had their papers, instruments, books, medicine, and a large load of trade goods in it.
When the pirogue was abreast of Lewis and Clark, with Charbonneau, Sacajawea, Little Pomp, and Cruzatte all aboard with the precious cargo, a sudden squall hit the river and Charbonneau, a nonswimmer, panicked. “The steersman allarmed," Lewis wrote, “instead of puting her before the wind, lufted her up into it, the wind was so violent that it drew the brace of the squarsail out of the hand of the man who was attending it, and instantly upset the perogue and would have turned her completely topsaturva, had it not have been from the resistance made by the oarning [awning] against the water."
The leaders stood helplessly on the bank, trying to shout instructions to the people in the boat who could not hear, and when they fired shots to attract their attention, apparently no one even heard that. To Lewis' and Clark's surprise the pirogue righted itself, even though it had gone all the way over on its side, but it came upright with the precious cargo immersed in half a boatload of water.
Charbonneau disgusted everyone by becoming helpless, and instead of trying to help bring the boat under control, Lewis wrote, “Charbono still crying to his god for mercy, had not yet recollected the rudder, nor could the repeated orders of the Bowsman, Cruzat, bring him to his recollection untill he threatened to shoot him instantly if he did not take hold of the rudder and do his duty."
Cruzatte saved the boat, and Sacajawea, who kept her wits about her, caught nearly all of the papers and other cargo that floated free when the pirogue took on water and with Cruzatte shouting dire threats, they were able to paddle to shore with the boat barely above the choppy water.
Lewis was so frightened at the prospect of losing the precious material that he once started to jump in and swim out to the pirogue but wisely changed his mind because he knew he could not swim 300 yards.
The next day Lewis wrote that the loss from the accident was relatively small, especially in light of what could have been lost. Several medical stores were completely destroyed as well as some garden seeds they had collected, and some gunpowder fell overboard and sank. Had they lost the entire cargo, the trip might have ended right then.
Almost as an afterthought, Lewis wrote that “a white bear toar Labuiche's coat which he had left in the plains."
By mid-May they were entering the rough, broken land of Montana that separates the Great Plains from the Rockies, and on May 21 they entered what is now called the Missouri Breaks, a dramatic area of towering sandstone and clay banks carved by wind and rain into fantastic formations. The river was swifter and shallower through that stretch as they passed more feeder streams, and the men were wearing out moccasins and leggings faster than before as they spent more time on shore pulling the boats upstream with towropes made from animal skins. To increase their discomfort, the wind blew almost constantly, sometimes hard enough to delay them for several hours, and it was always strong enough to throw grit in their eyes.