These were two American hunters named Dickson and Hancock, who were going up to trap the head-waters of the Missouri on their own account.

They had come from the Illinois country a year before, to hunt and trap; they had been plundered, and one of them wounded, in an encounter with the fierce Sioux, but were undauntedly pushing forwards into the unknown wilderness towards the mountains.
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.