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Historical Background

A providential meeting

So sore they could hardly stand and still deeply fatigued, at daybreak of July 28 the men struggled into the saddle again with the full realization that their lives and possibly those of their companions on the river depended on their every exertion. In about 12 miles, they realized they were near the Missouri and thought they heard the sound of a gun. Eight miles farther, well above the mouth of the Marias, they unmistakably heard the "joyfull sound" of rifle fire. Running down to the riverbank, with "unspeakable satisfaction" they saw the Gass-Ordway boat party en route downriver from the Great Falls planning to meet Lewis at the mouth of the Marias. [138]

Lewis and his companions had ridden 120 miles in slightly more than 24 hours. They stripped their possessions from their horses, turned them loose, and embarked in the boats without delay shortly after 9:00 a.m. In view of the Blackfeet threat, it was fortunate that Lewis and his three men happened to encounter their comrades. The substantially increased manpower and weaponry would help stave off any attack.

THE portage of the Great Falls had been smoothly accomplished. On July 19, or 3 days after Lewis and his companions had departed from the upper portage camp, Ordway and his nine men from the Clark group had arrived and joined Sergeant Gass and his five men from the Lewis contingent. The Ordway party, bringing along the six canoes and the supplies from the cache at Camp Fortunate, had traveled down the Beaverhead and Jefferson to the Great Falls via the Three Forks, where they had separated from Clark and the land party.

At the upper portage camp, one of the six canoes, damaged and considered to be too heavy to portage, was broken up and used for firewood. The other five were placed on the wagons and loaded with the baggage and equipment Ordway had brought as well as what remained of the already-opened cache at the upper portage camp. The portage, utilizing the four horses Lewis had left behind to tow the wagons, was far easier and faster than it was the year before, though much less manpower was available. Only 8 days were consumed in contrast to 11 days the year before. At the lower portage camp, the cache and the white pirogue that had been hidden there the year before were retrieved.

On July 27 Gass and Willard crossed the Missouri with the four horses to take them overland to the mouth of the Marias, where Lewis planned to use them for hunting purposes. The rest of the party set out in the five canoes and the pirogue for the same destination, where all planned to reunite with Lewis. It was the boat party that he met so fortuitously some distance above the mouth of the Marias on July 28.

High Plains country on the north side of the Missouri River near where the Marias joins it. This jumbled, broken landscape, Blackfeet country at the time of Lewis and Clark, is now sometimes called the Marias River Breaks. The far distant bluff line in the left center marks the Missouri River trough. (National Park Service (Appleman, 1964).)

Lewis moves downstream

About noon that day, the reunited party arrived at the mouth of the Marias. After hastily investigating the area for Blackfeet, they opened the main cache and several smaller ones, all on the riverbank. The main cache had caved in and the bulk of the contents had been injured, except for most of the food. The small caches were found to be in good order. At 1:00 p.m. Sergeant Gass and Private Willard arrived with the horses from the Great Falls. Everyone then moved over to the small island at the mouth of the river where the red pirogue had been hidden. It had decayed so badly it was beyond repair, but the nails and iron parts were salvaged.

Spurred by evidence of abandoned Blackfeet camps, Lewis and his party, leaving the horses behind, moved rapidly downstream that same day, July 28. When they reached the mouth of the Yellowstone, on August 7, they were disappointed not to find Clark there. They surmised from the name "Lewis" on a piece of paper attached to a pole and the remnant of a note found at an old Clark campsite that game was so scarce and the mosquitoes so troublesome he had proceeded farther downriver to wait for them. [139]

As Lewis glided down the Missouri, each day he expected to catch up with Clark, but found him always ahead, though campsite evidence showed the distance shortening. Unable to calculate how soon they would reunite, Lewis decided to "proceed as tho' he was not before me and leave the rest to the chapter of accedents."

On August 11 Lewis was seriously wounded while hunting with Cruzatte. Separated, the two were looking for a wounded elk. Lewis found it and was about to administer the coup de grace when, from out of nowhere, a bullet smashed through the top rear of his left thigh. It fortunately missed the bone and artery, and ripped a gash in his right buttock. Dressed in brown leather like everyone else, he assumed his companion, one-eyed and nearsighted at that, had mistaken him for an elk. Lewis called out to him several times but received no response, though the sound of the gun had been close. Thinking then that possibly Indians had shot him, he hurriedly limped back to the boats to warn the others. A scouting party found no warriors but soon came back with a chagrined Cruzatte, who admitted he had thought Lewis was an elk. Lewis, with the assistance of Sergeant Gass, removed his clothes and dressed his wounds. He stretched out in the white pirogue, and spent a painful and feverish night.

At 8 o'clock the next morning two American independent trappers, Joseph Dickson and Forrest Hancock, were met. They said they had passed and talked to the Clark contingent the previous noon. Continuing on, Lewis reunited with it at 1 o'clock.