They Meet Two Hunters.

These two hardy and daring adventurers formed the little vanguard of the bands of hunters and trappers, the famous Rocky Mountain men, who were to roam hither and hither across great West in lawless freedom for the next three quarters of a century.  They accompanied the party back to the Mandan village; there one of the soldiers joined them, a man name Colter, so fascinated by the life of the wilderness that he was not willing to leave it, even for a moment’s glimpse of the civilization, from which he had been so long exiled. [Footnote:  For Colter, and the first explorers of this region, see “The Yellowstone National Park,” by Captain H. M. Chittenden.] The three turned their canoe up-stream, while Lewis and Clark and the rest of the party drifted down past the Sioux.

    They Return to St. Louis.

The further voyage of the explorers was uneventful.  They had difficulties with the Sioux of course, but they held them at bay.  They killed game in abundance, and went down-stream as fast as sails, oars, and current could carry them.  In September they reached St. Louis and forwarded to Jefferson an account of what they had done.

    After-Careers of Lewis and Clark.

They had done a great deed, for they had opened the door into the heart of the far West.  Close on their tracks followed the hunters, trappers, and fur traders who themselves made ready the way for the settlers whose descendants were to possess the land.  As for the two leaders of the explorers, Lewis was made Governor of Louisiana Territory, and a couple of years afterwards died, as was supposed, by his own hand, in a squalid log cabin on the Chickasaw trace—­though it was never certain that he had not been murdered.  Clark was afterwards Governor of the territory, when its name had been changed to Missouri, and he also served honorably as Indian agent.  But neither of them did anything further of note; nor indeed was it necessary, for they had performed a feat which will always give them a place on the honor roll of American worthies.

    Pike and his Explorations.

While Lewis and Clark were descending the Columbia and recrossing the continent from the Pacific coast, another army officer was conducting explorations which were only less important than theirs.  This was Lieut.  Zebulon Montgomery Pike.  He was not by birth a Westerner, being from New Jersey, the son of an officer of the Revolutionary army; but his name will always be indelibly associated with the West.  His two voyages of exploration, one to the head-waters of the Mississippi, the other to the springs of the Arkansas and the Rio Grande, were ordered by Wilkinson, without authority from Congress.  When Wilkinson’s name was smirched by Burr’s conspiracy the Lieutenant likewise fell under suspicion, for it was believed that his south-western trip was undertaken in pursuance of some of Wilkinson’s schemes.  Unquestionably