The Young Alaskans on the Missouri Part 28

"But now, when Sacagawea had told her people how good the white men were, there was no longer any question of the friendship all around. As Billy expresses it, there was nothing to it, after that.

"You'd think that was asking us to believe enough? But no. The girl rushes up to Cameahwait, the chief, and puts her arms around him, too.

He's her brother, that's all!

"Well, this seemed to give them the entree into the best Shoshoni circles. Beyond this it was a question of details. Lewis stayed here till August 24th, trading for horses for all he was worth. He got five, for five or six dollars each in goods. They _cached_ what goods they could spare or could not take, hid their canoes, and on August 24th bade the old Missouri good-by--for that year at least.

"They now went over west of the Divide, to the main village, to trade for more horses. They cut up their oars and broke up their remaining boxes and made pack saddles to carry their goods.

"Meantime, Clark and eleven men, all the good carpenters, had started on August 18th to cross the Divide and explore down for a route on the stream which we now know took them to the Salmon River. They traveled two days, to the Indian camp. Now the _Journal_ takes page after page, describing these Indians.

"Now it was Clark's turn to go ahead and find a way by horse or boat down to the Columbia. His notes tell of his troubles:

"'August 20th Tuesday 1805 'So-So-ne' the Snake Indians Set out at half past 6 oClock and proceeded on (met many parties of Indians) thro' a hilley Countrey to the Camp of the Indians on a branch of the Columbia River, before we entered this Camp a Serimonious hault was requested by the Chief and I smoked with all that Came around, for Several pipes, we then proceeded on to the Camp & I was introduced into the only Lodge they had which was pitched in the Center for my party all the other Lodges made of bushes, after a fiew Indian Seremonies I informed the Indians (of) the object of our journey our good intentions toward them my Consirn for their distressed Situation, what we had done for them in makeing a piece with the Minitarras Mandans Rickara &c. for them. and requested them all to take over their horses & a.s.sist Capt Lewis across &c.

also informing them the o(b)ject of my journey down the river, and requested a guide to accompany me, all of which was repeited by the Chief to the whole village.

"'Those pore people Could only raise a Sammon & a little dried Choke Cherries for us half the men of the tribe with the Chief turned out to hunt the antilopes, at 3 oClock after giveing a fiew Small articles as presents I set out accompanied by an old man as a Guide I endevered to procure as much information from thos people as possible without much Suckcess they being but little acquainted or effecting to be So. I left one man to purchase a horse and overtake me and proceeded on thro a wide rich bottom on a beaten Roade 8 miles Crossed the river and encamped on a Small run, this evening pa.s.sed a number of old lodges, and met a number of men women children & horses, met a man who appeared of Some Consideration who turned back with us, we halted a woman & gave us 3 Small Sammon, this man continued with me all night and partook of what I had which was a little Pork verry Salt. Those Indians are verry attentive to Strangers &c. I left our interpreter & his woman to accompany the Indians to Capt Lewis to-morrow the Day they informed me they would Set out I killed a Pheasent at the Indian Camp larger than a dungal (dunghill) fowl with f(l)eshey protubrances about the head like a turkey. Frost last night.'

"Clark got more and more discouraging news about getting down the Lemhi River, on which they were camped, and the big river below--the Salmon River. But with the old man for guide, he went about seventy miles, into the gorge of the Salmon River, before he would quit. But he found that no man could get down that torrent, with either boat or pack train. He gave it up. They were nearly starved when they got back at the Indian camp, where Lewis and the other men were trading. Sacagawea had kept all her people from going on east to the buffalo country, though now they none of them had anything to eat but a few berries and choke cherries.

If the Indians had left, or if they had been missed by the party, the expedition would have ended there. The Indian girl once more had saved the Northwest for America, very likely.

"Now the old Indian guide said he knew a way across, away to the north.

They hired him as guide. They traded for twenty-nine horses, and at last packed them and set out for the hardest part of their journey and the riskiest, though they did not know that then. On August 30th they set out. At the same time Cameahwait and his band set off east, after their fall hunt.

"That was the last that Sacagawea ever saw of her brother or her girl friend. She went on with her white husband, into strange tribes--nothing further for her to look forward to now, for she was leaving home for another thousand miles, in the opposite direction.

"And that ended the long, hard, risky time the company of Volunteers for Discovery of the Northwest had in crossing the Continental Divide. We lie at the foot of their pa.s.s. Yonder they headed out for the setting sun!"

"Let's go on after them, Uncle d.i.c.k!" exclaimed Jesse. "We've got a good outfit, and we're not afraid!"

"I've been expecting that," rejoined their leader. "I was afraid you'd want to go through! But we can't do it, fellows, not this year at least.

There's the school term we've got to think of. We're nearly three thousand miles from St. Louis. That means we'll have to choose between two or three weeks of the hardest kind of mountain work and back out when we've got nowhere, and taking a fast and simple trip to the true head of the Missouri. Which would you rather do?"

"We don't like to turn back," said Rob.

"Well, it wouldn't be turning back, really. It would be going to the real head of the Missouri--and neither Lewis nor Clark ever did that, or very many other men." Billy spoke quietly.

"But don't think," he added, "that I'm not game to go on into the Bitter Roots, if you say so. I'm promising you she's rough, up in there. The trail they took was a fright, and I don't see how they made it. It ran to where this range angles into the corner of the Bitter Roots, and crossed there. They crossed another pa.s.s, too, and that makes three pa.s.ses, from here. They got here July 10th, and three days later at last they hit the Lolo Creek trail, over the Lolo Pa.s.s--the way old Chief Joseph came east when he went on the war trail; he fought Gibbon in the battle of the Big Hole, above here."

Rob sighed. "Well, it only took Lewis and Clark a couple of months to get through. But still, we've only got a couple of weeks."

"What do you say, John? Shall we go south to the head with Billy?" Uncle d.i.c.k did not decide it alone.

"Vote yes, in the circ.u.mstances," said John. "Hate to quit her, though!"

"You, Jess?"

"Oh, all right, I'll haul off if the rest do. We'll get to fish some, won't we?"

"All you want. The best trout and grayling fishing there is left anywhere."

"It's a vote, Uncle d.i.c.k!" said Rob. "This is our head camp on this leg of the trip."

"I think that's wise," said Uncle d.i.c.k.

"But before we leave here I want you to have a last look at the map."

They spread it open in the firelight.

"This point is where Clark came and got the canoes the next year, 1806.

They came back over the Lolo, but took a short cut, east of this mountain range, forty miles east of the other trail. They came over the Gibbon Pa.s.s--which ought to be called Clark's Pa.s.s and isn't--and headed southeast, the Indian girl being of use again now. They came down Gra.s.shopper Creek, walking over millions of dollars of gold gravel, and found their canoes, not over a few hundred yards from where we sit, like enough.

"Then Clark and his men got in the boats and headed home. Sacagawea showed them the trail up the Gallatin, over the Bozeman Pa.s.s, to the Yellowstone. And they went down that to its mouth.

"And now, one last touch to show what nerve those captains really had.

Either could cut loose.

"Near what is now Missoula, on the Bitter Root--which Lewis called Clark's Fork, after Clark, just as Clark named his Salmon River tributary after Lewis--Lewis took ten men and headed across lots for the Great Falls and then for the head of the Marias River!

"Surely, they began to scatter. Clark had left twenty men, the Indian girl and her baby, and they had fifty horses. At this place here, where we are in camp, Clark split his party again, some going down in the boats, some on horseback, but all traveling free and happy. They got here July 10th, and three days later were at the Three Forks, both parties, only one hour apart! They certainly had good luck in getting together.

"On that same day, Sergeant Ordway took six boats and nine men and started down the Missouri to meet Lewis at the Great Falls, or the mouth of the Marias. They made it down all right, and that is all we can say, for no record exists of that run downstream.

"Now, get all this straight in your heads and see how they had scattered, in that wild, unknown country, part in boats, part on sh.o.r.e--the riskiest way to travel. All the sergeants are captains now.

We have four different companies.

"Ga.s.s is at the Great Falls, where Lewis split his party. Ordway is on his way down the river from the Three Forks to the Falls. Clark is with the horses now, headed east for the Yellowstone--which not a soul in that party knew a thing about, except the Indian girl, who insisted they would come out on the Yellowstone. And on that river the Clark party divided once more, part going in boats and part on horseback!

"Now figure five parties out of thirty-one men. Look at your map, remembering that the two land parties were in country they had never seen before. Yet they plan to meet at the mouth of the Yellowstone, over twelve hundred miles from where we are sitting here! That's traveling!

That's exploring! And their story of it all is as plain and simple and modest as though children had done it. There's nothing like it in all the world."

He ceased to speak. The little circle fell silent.

"Go on, go on, Uncle d.i.c.k!" urged Jess. "You've not allowed us to read ahead that far. You said you'd rather we wouldn't. Tell us, now."

"No. Fold up your maps and close your journals for a while, here at our last camp on the greatest trail a river ever laid.

"We're going fishing now, fellows--to-morrow we start east, gaining two years on Lewis and Clark. When we get down near the Yellowstone and Great Falls country again, going east ourselves, we'll just finish up the story of the map till we reach the Mandans--which is where we left our own good ship _Adventurer_.

"To-morrow we head south, the other way. 'This story is to be continued in our next,' as the story papers say.

"Good night. Keep all this in your heads. It is a great story of great men in a great valley, doing the first exploring of the greatest country in the world--the land that is drained by the Missouri and its streams!

"Good luck, old tops!" he added, as he rose and stepped to the edge of the circle of light, waving his hand to the Divide above them. He stood looking toward the west.

"Whom are you speaking to, Uncle d.i.c.k?" asked John, as he heard no answer.

"I was just speaking to my friends, Captain Meriwether Lewis and Captain William Clark. Didn't you see them pa.s.s our camp just now?"