In 1803 that part of our country which lies west of the Mississippi was
almost unknown to the white men. In that year the President sent
Captain Lewis and Captain Clark to see what the country was like. They
went up the Missouri River and across the Rocky Mountains. Then they
went down the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean. It took them more
than two years to make the trip there and back.
Lewis and Clark had about forty-five men with them. One of these men
was named Colter. In the very heart of the wild country he left the
party, and set up as a trapper. A trapper is a man who catches animals
in traps in order to get their skins to sell. The Blackfoot Indians
made Colter a prisoner. Colter knew a little of their language. He
heard them talking of how they should kill their prisoner. They thought
it would be fun to set him up and shoot at him with their arrows until
he was dead. At this time the Indians on the western plains had no
guns. But the Indian chief thought he knew a better way. He laid hold
of Colter's shoulder, and said,--
"Can you run fast?"
Colter could run very swiftly, but he pretended to the chief that he
was a bad runner. So they took him out on the prairie about four
hundred yards away from the Indians. There he was turned loose, and
told to run.
The whole band of Indians ran after him, yelling like wild beasts.
Colter did not look back. He had to run through thorns that hurt his
bare feet. But he was running for his life. Six miles away there was a
river. If he could get to that, he might escape.
He almost flew over the ground. At first he did not turn his head
round. When he had run about three miles, he glanced back. Most of the
Indians had lost ground. The best runners were ahead of the others. One
Indian, swifter than all the rest, was only about a hundred yards
behind him. This man had a spear in his hand to kill Colter as soon as
he should be near enough.
[Illustration]
Poor Colter now ran harder than ever to get away from this Indian. At
last he was only about a mile from the river. He looked back, and saw
the swift Indian only twenty yards away, with his spear ready to throw.
It was of no use for Colter to keep on running. He turned round and
faced the swift runner, who was about to throw his spear. Colter spread
his arms wide, and stood still.
The Indian was surprised at this. He tried to stop running, so as to
kill the white man with his spear. But he had already run himself
nearly to death, and, when he tried to stop quickly, he lost his
balance, and fell forward to the ground. His lance stuck in the earth,
and broke in two.
Colter quickly pulled the pointed end of the spear out of the ground
and killed the fallen Indian. Then he turned and ran on toward the
river.
The other Indians were coming swiftly behind; but, as they passed the
place where the first one lay dead, each of them stopped a moment to
howl over him, after their custom. This gave Colter a little more time.
He reached a patch of woods near the river. He ran through this to the
river, and jumped in He swam toward a little island.
Logs and brush had floated down the river, and lodged across the
island. This driftwood had formed a great raft. Colter dived under this
raft. He swam to a place where he could push his head up to get air,
and still be hidden by the brush.
The Indians were already yelling on the bank of the river. A moment
later they were swimming toward the island. When they reached the drift
pile, they ran this way and that. They looked into all the cracks and
tried to find the white man. They ran right over his hiding place.
Colter thought they would surely find him.
But after a long time they went away. Colter thought they would set
fire to the raft of driftwood, but they did not think of that. Perhaps
they thought that Colter had been drowned.
He lay still under the raft till night came. Then he swam down the
stream a long distance, left the stream, and went far out on the
prairie. Here he felt himself safe from his enemies.
But he had no clothes and no food. He had no gun to shoot animals with.
It was several days' journey to the nearest place where there were
white men, at a trading house.
Colter had nothing to eat but roots. The sun burned his skin in the
daytime. He shivered without a covering at night. The thorns hurt his
feet when he walked, but he found his way to the trading house at last.
He used to tell of wonderful things that he saw while traveling to the
trading house after he got away from the Indians. He saw springs that
were boiling hot and steaming. He saw fountains that would sometimes
spout hot water into the air for hundreds of feet.
These and many other wonderful things that he saw at this time he used
to tell about. But nobody believed his stories. Nobody had ever seen
anything of the kind in this country. When Colter would tell of these
things, those who heard him thought that he was making up stories, or
that he had been out of his head while traveling and had thought he saw
such wonders.
But after many long years the wonderful place which we call Yellowstone
Park was found, and in it were boiling and spouting springs. People
knew then that Colter had been telling the truth, and that he had
traveled through the Yellowstone country.
[Illustration: A Geyser.]