Pathfinders of the West Part 16

Springs and tenuous, wind-blown falls like water threads trickled down each side of the lofty rocks. The water was so deep that poles did not touch bottom, and there was not the width of a foot-hold between water and wall for camping ground. Flags were unfurled from the prows of the boats to warn marauding Indians on the height above that the _voyageurs_ were white men, not enemies. Darkness fell on the canon with the great hushed silence of the mountains; and still the boats must go on and on in the darkness, for there was no anchorage. Finally, above a small island in the middle of the river, was found a tiny camping ground with pine-drift enough for fire-wood. Here they landed in the pitchy dark.

They had entered the Gates of the Rockies on the 19th of July. In the morning bighorn and mountain goat were seen scrambling along the ledges above the water. On the 25th the Three Forks of the Missouri were reached. Here the Indian woman, Sacajawea, recognized the ground and practically became the guide of the party, advising the two explorers to follow the south fork or the Jefferson, as that was the stream which her tribe followed when crossing the mountains to the plains.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Packer carrying Goods across Portage.]

It now became absolutely necessary to find mountain Indians who would supply horses and guide the white men across the Divide. In the hope of finding the Indian trail, Captain Lewis landed with two men and preceded the boats. He had not gone five miles when to his sheer delight he saw a Snake Indian on horseback. Ordering his men to keep back, he advanced within a mile of the horseman and three times spread his blanket on the ground as a signal of friendship. The horseman sat motionless as bronze.

Captain Lewis went forward, with trinkets held out to tempt a parley, and was within a few hundred yards when the savage wheeled and dashed off.

Lewis' men had disobeyed orders and frightened the fellow by advancing.

Deeply chagrined, Lewis hoisted an American flag as sign of friendship and continued his march. Tracks of horses were followed across a bog, along what was plainly an Indian road, till the sources of the Missouri became so narrow that one of the men put a foot on each side and thanked G.o.d that he had lived to bestride the Missouri. Stooping, all drank from the crystal spring whose waters they had traced for three thousand miles from St. Louis. Following a steep declivity, they were presently crossing the course of a stream that flowed west and must lead to some branch of the Columbia.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Spying on an Enemy's Fort.]

Suddenly, on the cliff in front, Captain Lewis discovered two squaws, an Indian, and some dogs. Unfurling his flag, he advanced. The Indians paused, then dashed for the woods. Lewis tried to tie some presents round the dogs' necks as a peace-offering, but the curs made off after their master. The white men had not proceeded a mile before they came to three squaws, who never moved but bowed their heads to the ground for the expected blow that would make them captives. Throwing down weapons, Lewis pulled up his sleeve to show that he was white. Presents allayed all fear, and the squaws had led him two miles toward their camp when sixty warriors came galloping at full speed with arrows levelled. The squaws rushed forward, vociferating and showing their presents. Three chiefs at once dismounted, and fell on Captain Lewis with such greasy embraces of welcome that he was glad to end the ceremony. Pipes were smoked, presents distributed, and the white men conducted to a great leathern lodge, where Lewis announced his mission and prepared the Indians for the coming of the main force in the boats.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Indian Camp at Foothills of Rockies.]

The Snakes scarcely knew whether to believe the white man's tale. The Indian camp was short of provisions, and Lewis urged the warriors to come back up the trail to meet the advancing boats. The braves hesitated.

Cameahwait, the chief, harangued till a dozen warriors mounted their horses and set out, Lewis and his men each riding behind an Indian.

Captain Clark could advance only slowly, and the Indians with Lewis grew suspicious as they entered the rocky denies without meeting the explorers' party. Half the Snakes turned back. Among those that went on were three women. To demonstrate good faith, Lewis again mounted a horse behind an Indian, though the bare-back riding over rough ground at a mad pace was almost jolting his bones apart. A spy came back breathless with news for the hungry warriors that one of the white hunters had killed a deer, and the whole company lashed to a breakneck gallop that nearly finished Lewis, who could only cling for dear life to the Indian's waist.

The poor wretches were so ravenous that they fell on the dead deer and devoured it raw. It was here that Lewis expected the boats. They were not to be seen. The Indians grew more distrustful. The chief at once put fur collars, after the fashion of Indian dress, round the white men's shoulders. As this was plainly a trick to conceal the whites in case of treachery on their part, Lewis at once took off his hat and placed it on the chief's head. Then he hurried the Indians along, lest they should lose courage completely. To his mortification, Captain Clark did not appear. To revive the Indians' courage, the white men then pa.s.sed their guns across to the Snakes, signalling willingness to suffer death if the Indians discovered treachery. That night all the Indians hid in the woods but five, who slept on guard round the whites. If anything had stopped Clark's advance, Lewis was lost. Though neither knew it, Lewis and Clark were only four miles apart, Clark, Chaboneau, the guide, and Sacajawea, the Indian woman, were walking on the sh.o.r.e early in the morning, when the squaw began to dance with signs of the most extravagant joy. Looking ahead, Clark saw one of Lewis' men, disguised as an Indian, leading a company of Snake warriors that the squaw had recognized as her own people, from whom she had been wrested when a child. The Indians broke into songs of delight, and Sacajawea, dashing through the crowd, threw her arms round an Indian woman, sobbing and laughing and exhibiting all the hysterical delight of a demented creature. Sacajawea and the woman had been playmates in childhood and had been captured in the same war; but the Snake woman had escaped, while Sacajawea became a slave and married the French guide.

Meanwhile, Captain Clark was being welcomed by Lewis and the chief, Cameahwait. Sacajawea was called to interpret. Cameahwait rose to speak. The poor squaw flung herself on him with cries of delight. In the chief of the Snakes she had recognized her brother. Laced coats, medals, flags, and trinkets were presented to the Snakes; but though willing enough to act as guides, the Indians discouraged the explorers about going on in boats. The western stream was broken for leagues by terrible rapids walled in with impa.s.sable precipices. Boats were abandoned and horses bought from the Snakes. The white men set their faces northwestward, the southern trail, usually followed by the Snakes, leading too much in the direction of the Spanish settlements. Game grew so scarce that by September the men were without food and a colt was killed for meat.

By October the company was reduced to a diet of dog; but the last Divide had been crossed. Horses were left with an Indian chief of the Flatheads, and the explorers glided down the Clearwater, leading to the Columbia, in five canoes and one pilot boat. Great was the joy in camp on November 8, 1805; for the boats had pa.s.sed the last _portage_ of the Columbia. When heavy fog rose, there burst on the eager gaze of the _voyageurs_ the shining expanse of the Pacific. The shouts of the jubilant _voyageurs_ mingled with the roar of ocean breakers. Like Alexander Mackenzie of the far North a decade before, Lewis and Clark had reached the long-sought Western Sea. They had been first up the Missouri, first across the middle Rockies, and first down the Columbia to the Pacific.

Seven huts, known as Fort Clatsop, were knocked up on the south side of the Columbia's harbor for winter quarters; and a wretched winter the little fort spent, beleaguered not by hostiles, but by such inclement damp that all the men were ill before spring and their very leather suits rotted from their backs. Many a time, coasting the sea, were they benighted. Spreading mats on the sand, they slept in the drenching rain.

Unused to ocean waters, the inland voyageurs became deadly seasick.

Once, when all were encamped on the sh.o.r.e, an enormous tidal wave broke over the camp with a smashing of log-drift that almost crushed the boats.

Nez Perces and Flatheads had a.s.sisted the white men after the Snake guides had turned back. Clatsops and Chinooks were now their neighbors.

Christmas and New Year of 1806 were celebrated by a discharge of firearms. No boats chanced to touch at the Columbia during the winter.

The time was pa.s.sed laying up store of elk meat and leather; for the company was not only starving, but nearly naked. The Pacific had been reached on November 14, 1805. Fort Clatsop was evacuated on the afternoon of March 23, 1806.

The goods left to trade for food and horses when Lewis and Clark departed from the coast inland had dwindled to what could have been tied in two handkerchiefs; but necessity proved the mother of invention, and the men cut the bra.s.s b.u.t.tons from their tattered clothes and vended bra.s.s trinkets to the Indians. The medicine-chest was also sacrificed, every Indian tribe besieging the two captains for eye-water, fly-blisters, and other patent wares. The poverty of the white man roused the insolence of the natives on the return over the mountains. Rocks were rolled down on the boatmen at the worst _portages_ by aggressive Indians; and once, when the hungry _voyageurs_ were at a meal of dog meat, an Indian impudently flung a live pup straight at Captain Lewis' plate. In a trice the pup was back in the fellow's face; Lewis had seized a weapon; and the crestfallen aggressor had taken ignominiously to his heels. When they had crossed the mountains, the forces divided into three parties, two to go east by the Yellowstone, one under Lewis by the main Missouri.

Somewhere up the height of land that divides the southern waters of the Saskatchewan from the northern waters of the Missouri, the tracks of Minnetaree warriors were found. These were the most murderous raiders of the plains. Over a swell of the prairie Lewis was startled to see a band of thirty horses, half of them saddled. The Indians were plainly on the war-path, for no women were in camp; so Lewis took out his flag and advanced unfalteringly. An Indian came forward. Lewis and the chief shook hands, but Lewis now had no presents to pacify hostiles. Camping with the Minnetarees for the night, as if he feared nothing, Lewis nevertheless took good care to keep close watch on all movements. He smoked the pipe of peace with them as late as he dared; and when he retired to sleep, he had ordered Fields and the other two white men to be on guard. At sunrise the Indians crowded round the fire, where Fields had for the moment carelessly laid his rifle. Simultaneously, the warriors dashed at the weapons of the sleeping white men, while other Indians made off with the explorers' horses. With a shout, Fields gave the alarm, and pursuing the thieves, grappled with the Indian who had stolen his rifle. In the scuffle the Indian was stabbed to the heart.

Drewyer succeeded in wresting back his gun, and Lewis dashed out with his pistol, shouting for the Indians to leave the horses. The raiders were mounting to go off at full speed. The white men pursued on foot. Twelve horses fell behind; but just as the Indians dashed for hiding behind a cliff, Lewis' strength gave out. He warned them if they did not stop he would shoot. An Indian turned to fire with one of the stolen weapons, and instantly Lewis' pistol rang true. The fellow rolled to earth mortally wounded; but Lewis felt the whiz of a bullet past his own head.

Having captured more horses than they had lost, the white men at once mounted and rode for their lives through river and slough, sixty miles without halt; for the Minnetarees would a.s.suredly rally a larger band of warriors to their aid. A pause of an hour to refresh the horses and a wilder ride by moonlight put forty more miles between Captain Lewis and danger. At daylight the men were so sore from the mad pace for twenty-four hours that they could scarcely stand; but safety depended on speed and on they went again till they reached the main Missouri, where by singularly good luck some of the other _voyageurs_ had arrived.

[Ill.u.s.tration: On Guard.]

The entire forces were reunited below the Yellowstone on August 12th.

Traders on the way up the Missouri from St. Louis brought first news of the outer world, and the discoverers were not a little amused to learn that they had been given up for dead. At the Mandans, Colter, one of the frontiersmen, asked leave to go back to the wilds; and Chaboneau, with his dauntless wife, bade the white men farewell. On September 20th settlers on the river bank above St. Louis were surprised to see thirty ragged men, with faces bronzed like leather, pa.s.sing down the river.

Then some one remembered who these worn _voyageurs_ were, and cheers of welcome made the cliffs of the Missouri ring. On September 23d, at midday, the boats drew quietly up to the river front of St. Louis. Lewis and Clark, the greatest pathfinders of the United States, had returned from the discovery of a new world as large as half Europe, without losing a single man but Sergeant Floyd, who had died from natural causes a few months after leaving St. Louis. What Radisson had begun in 1659-1660, what De la Verendrye had attempted when he found the way barred by the Rockies--was completed by Lewis and Clark in 1805. It was the last act in that drama of heroes who carved empire out of wilderness; and all alike possessed the same hero-qualities--courage and endurance that were indomitable, the strength that is generated in life-and-death grapple with naked primordial reality, and that reckless daring which defies life and death. Those were hero-days; and they produced hero-types, who flung themselves against the impossible--and conquered it. What they conquered we have inherited. It is the Great Northwest.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Indians of the Up-country or _Pays d'en Haut_.]

[1] Mention of this man is to be found in Northwest Company ma.n.u.scripts, lately sold in the Ma.s.son collection of doc.u.ments to the Canadian Archives and McGill College Library. It was also my good fortune--while this book was going to print--to see the entire family collection of Clark's letters, owned by Mrs. Julia Clark Voorhis of New York. Among these letters is one to Chaboneau from Clark. In spite of the cordial relations between the Nor'westers and Lewis and Clark, these fur traders cannot conceal their fear that this trip presages the end of the fur trade.

APPENDIX

For the very excellent translations of the almost untranslatable transcripts taken from the Marine Archives of Paris, and forwarded to me by the Canadian Archives, I am indebted to Mr. R. Roy, of the Marine Department, Ottawa, the eminent authority on French Canadian genealogical matters.

Some of the topics in the Appendices are of such a controversial nature--the whereabouts of the Mascoutins, for instance--that at my request Mr. Roy made the translation absolutely literal no matter how incongruous the wording. To those who say Radisson was not on the Missouri I commend Appendix E, where the tribes of the West are described.

APPENDIX A

COPY OF LETTER WRITTEN TO M. COMPORTe BY M. CHOUART, AT LONDON, THE 29TH APRIL, 1685

SIR,

I have received the two letters with which you have honored me; I have even received one inclosed that I have not given, for reasons that I will tell you, G.o.d willing, in a few days.

I have received your instructions contained in the one and the other, as to the way I should act, and I should not have failed to execute all that you order me for the service of our Master, if I had been at full liberty so to do; you must have no doubt about it, because my inclination and my duty agree perfectly well. All the advantages that I am offered did not for a moment cause me to waver, but, in short, sir, I could not go to Paris, and I shall be happy to go and meet you by the route you travel. I shall be well pleased to find landed the people you state will be there; in case they may have the commission you speak of in your two letters, have it accompanied if you please with a memorandum of what I shall have to do for the service of our Master. I know of a case whereby I am sufficiently taught that it is not safe to undertake too many things, however advantageous they may be, nor undertaking too little. I am convinced, sir, that having orders, I will carry them out at the risk of my life, and I flatter myself that you do not doubt it.

There is much likelihood that the men you sent last year are lost.

I should like, sir, to be at the place you desire me to go; be a.s.sured I will perish, or be there as soon as I possibly can; it is saying enough. I do not answer to the rest of your letter, it is sufficient that I am addressing a sensible man, who, knowing my heart, will not doubt that I will keep my word with him, as I believe he will do all he can for my interests.

I am, with much anxiety to see you, sir, your most humble and most obedient servant,

(signed) CHOUART.

I will leave here only on the 25th of next month.

APPENDIX B

COPY OF LETTER WRITTEN BY M. CHOUART TO MRS. DES GROSEILLERS, HIS MOTHER

AT LONDON, 11TH APRIL, 1685.

MY VERY DEAR MOTHER,

I learn by the letter you have written me, of the 2nd November last, that my father has returned from France without obtaining anything at that Court, which made you think of leaving Quebec; my sentiment would be that you abandon this idea as I am strongly determined to go and be by you at the first opportunity I get, which shall be, G.o.d willing, as soon as I have taken means to that effect when I have returned from the North.

I hope to start on this voyage in a month or six weeks at the latest; I cannot determine on what date I could be near you; my father may know what difficulties there are. However, I hope to surmount them, and there is nothing I would not do to that end.

The money I left with my cousin is intended to buy you a house, as I have had always in mind to do, had not my father opposed it, but now I will do it so as to give you a chance to get on, and always see you in the country where I will live.