356 The Winning of the West 



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 buf- 

 falo, or an elk and a deer, or four deer, every day. 

 There was one kind of game which they at times 

 found altogether too familiar. This was the grisly 

 bear, which they were the first white men to dis- 

 cover. They called it indifferently the grisly, 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 grisly 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 sav- 

 age. Again and again these huge bears attacked 



