"Dat cactus so bad it steeck my moccasin to my feets," complained Cruzatte.
There was quite a bit of news, time to time, from the White-bear Islands camp, where Patrick Gass and a few other men under Captain Lewis stayed to cover the frame of an iron canoe with skins. The bears were bad. Joe Fields had met three at once and had been chased into the river; had fallen, cut his hand and knee on the rocks and bent his gun. Drouillard and Reuben Fields had climbed a tree, and from it Drouillard had killed a bear with one shot through the head. The bear's nose was as large as an ox's, his front foot measured nine inches wide, his hind foot measured nearly twelve inches long, not counting the claws. That same night another bear entered the camp and carried away some of the buffalo meat. The little black dog was kept busy all the nights, growling and barking.
"Dose islands full of bear," said old Cruzatte. "I never know bear so mean. Mebbe if we don' go in dere an' clean dem out, dey eat some of us. I sleep on my gun de whole night."
"One good thing: that pesky swivel's been cached at the foot of the first falls," quoth Robert Frazier. "We don't have to lug a cannon around any more."
By the last of June all the stuff had been moved from Portage Creek. But there had been a rain, making the trail soft; so part of the final two wagon-loads was dumped about four miles on the way, and camp
