Part 10

Listen to the shouts! See! The party sent for the baggage were legging to camp! They had left, trudging gaily, laughing and gamboling and stripped to the waist, because of the heat and the work ahead. And here they were, a confused crowd, heads down, naked shoulders high, beating through the storm for shelter while the fierce hail lashed their skins.

It was rather funny――and it was serious, too. The hail pelted like grape-shot; some of the hailstones were as large as Peter’s fist. Ah! One-eyed Cruzatte was down. He could not see very well, anyway, and the hail had knocked him flat and sprawling. Down were George Gibson and John Potts, and Nat Pryor――only, all, to stagger to their feet and lurch onward again.

In charged the crowd, blinded and bleeding, to dive frenziedly underneath the wagon, or to grab right and left for shirts and robes, and crouch, gasping but covered.

“I t’ought I was knock’ dead,” panted old Cruzatte.

“Feel as though I’d had a lickin’,” panted William Werner.

The hail was followed by a furious deluge of rain. The sky cleared――and here came the captain and squad. What a sight they were, not only drenched, but muddy from head to feet. They had been caught in a ravine, near the Great Falls, where they had sought the protection of shelf-rock. But in a twinkling the ravine had filled with water――a rushing mass carrying stones and drift-wood. They tried to climb. The water rose almost as fast as they climbed. The captain and Chaboneau helped the Bird-woman. She lost her net, but saved little Toussaint. The captain lost his compass and an umbrella that he had carried; Chaboneau lost his gun and bullet-pouch and tomahawk. York was up on the plain hunting buffalo, and although badly bruised, fared the best of anybody, except Peter. So, after all, Peter was satisfied that he had not been along.

Willow Run had risen six feet, and now was impassable. Because of that, and the mud, two more days were required, to take all the baggage into the White-bear Islands camp.

That evening, July 2, the captains ordered an attack on the largest island, ruled by a king of the white bears.

“Sure, they’re so sassy we got to tache ’em a lesson,” quoth Pat.

But although the island was thoroughly searched, by all hands, including Peter, only one bear fell. Drouillard shot him through the heart as he was charging, and he died without doing any damage.

“Have ye seen the falls, boy?” queried Pat, of Peter, the next morning. Peter shook his head. “Well, nayther have I,” continued Pat. “I’ve been workin’ too hard――an’ so’ve ye. But with the permission of the commandin’ officers we’ll jest take a day off, b’gorry, an’ make a tour of inspection. We’ll lave the other lads to finish the iron boat.”

And inspect the falls they did, from end to end. It was a marvelous spectacle――ten miles of rush and roar and spray and foam. The eagle was on her nest in the top of the lone cottonwood on the island. The Indians at the Mandan and Minnetaree villages had said there would be an eagle.

“An’ ten thousand buff’lo!” exclaimed Sergeant Pat, surveying from the brink of one of the falls. “Ten thousand grazin’, an’ another thousand drowned in the rapids. Sure, they’re bein’ carried down like chips.”

To the south and west and north were the mountains, those to the northward snowy, those to the southward more bare.

“An’ those are the wans we have to cross, I reckon,” sighed Patrick.

But the iron boat did not prove a success. After days of labor at dressing skins, both elk and buffalo, and stretching them over the frame, and cementing the seams with a mixture of beeswax, buffalo tallow and pounded charcoal, she leaked so that she had to be taken apart again and buried.

So Captain Clark, with most of the men, went out in search of trees from which canoes might be hollowed; and it was the middle of July before the expedition was fairly on its way again.

“Faith, we’ll be lucky if we reach the Paycific before winter,” remarked Sergeant Pat.

The river led southwest, toward the mountains. It grew swifter and shallower, and was frequently broken by islands. There were days of arduous wading, hauling, struggling, sometimes in rain and hail, and again in the hot sun with the thermometer at eighty and above.

The mosquitoes and flies bothered. The shores grew rougher, and higher, until at one spot the river boiled down, 150 paces wide, through a gap in solid cliffs 1200 feet high, black granite below, creamy yellow above. The channel was too deep for wading, or for the poles; and the boats were rowed, a few inches at a time, with the oars. This gap was named the Gate of the Mountains.

“I told you we’d find a gate,” reminded Pat, to Peter. “Now what’s inside, an’ where be the Snakes?”

For this was the Sho-sho-ne country, at last. The Sho-sho-nes were horse Indians. The captains counted on getting horses from them, and leaving the canoes. The firing of guns was limited, lest the Snakes should hear and be alarmed. Indian trails and abandoned camps were passed. The snowy range of the Shining Mountains was nearer, in the west. Captain Clark took Chaboneau and Joe Fields and York and John Potts, and set out ahead, by land, to find some Indians, if possible.

Sa-ca-ja-we-a began to remark familiar places, where she and other Sho-sho-ne women had been, before she was captured by the Minnetarees. Now little flags were hoisted on the canoes, to tell the Sho-sho-nes that the United States soldiers were coming in peace.

“Soon de river make t’ree forks, Sa-ca-ja-we-a say,” informed old Cruzatte, at the evening camp after Captain Clark had been gone almost nine days.

“An’ which is the trail then, I wonder,” mused Sergeant Pat. “Sure we ought to be crossin’ the mountains before we get much furder south. It’s near August, already.”

At breakfast time the next morning, July 27, the crew hauling the leading boat against the stiff current suddenly cheered, frightened the big-horn sheep that had been following along the tops of the cliffs and peeping over curiously, watching the strange white men.

“De Sho-sho-nes!” gasped Lepage, who was on the line of the second boat, wherein Peter sat, fending with an oar. This was Peter’s job, when the current was very swift.

“Hooray!” cheered the men all.

Everybody expected to see Captain Clark waiting with some of the Snakes. But the first crew had not cheered because of any Indians. They had cheered because the cliffs ceased, and now there extended a broadly-rolling green meadow-land rimmed about with high mountain ranges white and gray. The mountains closed in behind, on the east and north and west; and the meadow lay before, on the east and south and west. All lovely it looked in the sunrise.

First, a river came in on the left, from the southeast. While breakfast was being cooked Captain Lewis, climbing a rocky outcrop on the bank of this river, saw, beyond, two other forks――a middle fork and a southwest fork, where the Missouri again split.

“The Three Forks, Sa-ca-ja-we-a?” he inquired.

The Bird-woman nodded, smiling.

“We’ll breakfast and go on to those upper forks, men,” informed the captain. “We may find word there from Captain Clark, as to which is the better. Sa-ca-ja-we-a doesn’t know.”

So they proceeded. But deserted lay the meadow-land. However, at the juncture of those forks was found a note, stuck in a cleft pole planted on the bank. Captain Clark said that the southwest fork was the better.

Captain Lewis ordered camp made a short distance up this fork, until Captain Clark should return. Right glad were all, including Peter, to rest awhile; eat, sleep, mend the tow-ropes and repair moccasins, and kill meat.

The Bird-woman was especially delighted.

“She say here on dis spot is where de Snake camp was surprise’ by de Minnetaree, five year ago, an’ chase’ into de timber. De Minnetaree keel four warrior, an’ capture four boys an’ all de women,” explained Drouillard. “Sa-ca-ja-we-a was capture’, too.”

That noon Captain Clark returned, with Chaboneau, Joe Fields, John Potts and York. They had not seen a single Indian; but they had had a hard tramp. Chaboneau’s feet had given out several times, and the captain was sick. He thought that he had drunk too much cold water while he was hot.

The first fork was named Gallatin’s River, in honor of the secretary of the treasury of the United States. The middle fork was named Madison River, in honor of James Madison, the secretary of state, at Washington. But the southwest fork was named the Jefferson, in honor of the President himself.

The two captains agreed that the Jefferson River was the main fork of the Missouri; and up the Jefferson they all went.

“Arrah!” groaned Pat. “An’ how d’ye like it, Peter? Bad cess to that Bird-woman. Didn’t she say we’d meet her people, an’ where be they?”

“Those Snakes are a wandering tribe, Pat,” answered Sergeant Pryor. “And Sa-ca-ja-we-a hasn’t been here since she was a girl, five years ago, remember.”

But Sa-ca-ja-we-a was remembering. This was her home country. She pointed out a high shoulder of rock not far from the river, to the west, and exclaimed.

“Dat she say is w’at ze Snakes call ze Beaver’s Head,” explained Chaboneau. “Ze Snakes spen’ deir summer ’cross ze mountains jes’ ze odder side, an’ she t’ink some sure to be on dis side, too. She t’ink we meet some of dem on dees river, furder up a leetle way.”

“To-morrow I’m going in yonder and not come back till I find the Snakes and their horses, Will,” declared Captain Lewis.

Immediately after breakfast Captain Lewis resolutely slung his knapsack on his back, donned his cocked hat, and with Drouillard, John Shields and Hugh McNeal, struck into the west.

“Keep traveling up river, Will,” he directed, as last word. “I’ll stay out this time till I find Indians and horses. You won’t see me again, before.”

This was August 9. For a week the canoes were hauled and pushed on up the crooked, rapid Jefferson, with never a word from the search party.

“We’ll all be turnin’ into fishes,” groaned Pat. “Me toes are webbed like a beaver’s, already. Sure, it’s an awful empty country; an’ we’re thray thousand miles from home.”

On August 16 they approached where the river forked once more. It was always forking, decided Peter. Before, not many miles, was a gap in the mountain range. The river seemed to lead for the gap. Were they going to follow it in? And then where would they be? The trees were ceasing. There were only three in sight. What would the camps do for wood? Ahead were brush and rocks; and this night the camp fires were made from willow branches. Whew, but the water was cold――the source of the river evidently was near, in the melting snow.

The river doubled in a great curve, before it reached the forks. Captain Clark had sent Reuben Fields and George Shannon ahead, to the forks, but they reported no news. In the morning he set out, with Chaboneau and Sa-ca-ja-we-a, to walk across the bend, while the boats were hauled around by way of the river.

As all were hauling and puffing, somebody cried aloud. It was Sergeant Ordway, on the foremost rope.

“Look, lads!” he bade. “The captain’s sighted something!”

“Look at Sa-ca-ja-we-a! Has she gone crazy?”

“Hooray!” cheered Patrick Gass. “Tis the Injuns they’re meetin’. I see some on horseback. Hooray! Heave, lads, on the lines.”

For Sa-ca-ja-we-a had run ahead of the captain――she was dancing――back she ran to him, and danced about him, her fingers in her mouth. Little Toussaint bobbed in his net.

“She suck her finger,” proclaimed old Cruzatte. “Dat mean she see her own peoples! Now she point. Dere dey come, on de hoss. Hooray!”

“Chaboneau swings his cap! The captain makes the peace sign!”

“Frinds, lads!” croaked Pat. “Heave, now; heave on the lines, or they’ll get away from yez!”

How the men tugged, even Peter laying his weight sturdily to the rope. Yonder, ahead to the left, inside the curve (and a long, vexatious curve it was), half a dozen Indians were galloping for the captain’s squad. They met Sa-ca-ja-we-a first, then Chaboneau, then the captain; all mingled together. The Indians were singing and prancing, and taking the captain up toward the forks. One jumped to earth and made the captain sit the horse. Hooray!

“There’s a village beyant,” gasped Patrick. “Heave, lads, or else we’re dreamin.”

“I see Drouillard dere, with dose Injuns,” asserted Labiche, whose eyes were keen. “He dress jes’ like Injun. I guess he trade clothes.”

“Heave, lads!”

The Indian camp grew plainer, as the boats rounded the curve. More Indians were flocking out, afoot and ahorse. Sa-ca-ja-we-a and another woman had rushed together; they were hugging each other. But before the canoes could arrive at the bank, the captain and Chaboneau and Sa-ca-ja-we-a had disappeared into a large willow lodge and most of the Indians had flowed in after.

Hugh McNeal met the boats, at the landing, and he had a long story to tell.

XIII

HORSES AT LAST

“Are they Snakes, Hugh?”

“Yes, of course. But we put in the dag-gonedest time you ever saw, catchin’ ’em,” responded Hugh. “First we had ’em, then we didn’t, next they had us!”

“What’s that around your neck? Where’s your hat?”

“Faith, ye look like a Borneo ape,” added Pat.

Hugh almost blushed through his coat of tan and whiskers. He was bare-headed, and about his neck was a curious object like a tippet or boa. In fact, it was very similar to the fur boas worn by women of to-day. One end was a nose and eyes, the other end was a tail; and all along the edge dangled small rolls of white fur sewed to a white band and hanging eighteen inches long――forming a kind of tassel cloak. The collar itself was brown otter, the border and tassels were ermine. But it was an odd-looking rig.

“Shucks,” apologized Hugh. “We traded clothes with the Injuns, to show good feelin’. The other fellow’s wearin’ my hat. Shields traded his shirt, too. The chief’s got on the captain’s cocked hat. And you ought to see Drouillard. He’s painted, to boot. With all that, we had a narrow squeak, I reckon.”

“How far you been?”

“Across the mountains, boys, to the Columby side. We followed up the Missouri, through yonder gap, till it got so small I stood with one foot on each bank. And we went on over, up an Injun trail. Where the waters flowed west we drank of the Columby!”

“Didn’t you meet any Injuns on this side?”

“Yes. I’ll tell you.”

And so he did. On the third day out, the captain had sighted an Indian, through his spy-glass. The Indian was horseback, and looked as though he might be a Snake. But when the captain, calling “Tabba bone,” meaning, in Sho-sho-ne, “white man,” and stripping back his sleeve to show his white skin, was just about to talk with the Indian, John Shields foolishly came in and the Indian galloped away. The captain gave John a proper “dressing down,” for this.

A number of horse tracks were seen, and the captain kept on advancing, following a sort of a road, into the mountains. He ordered a United States flag to be carried, on a pole. Next, two squaws were frightened, and ran away――but only a mile on, down the road, an old woman and a young woman and a little girl were discovered, on a sudden, digging roots. The young woman ran, but the old woman and the little girl squatted and covered their heads, expecting to be killed.

The captain raised them up and gave them presents, and got Drouillard to talk with them in sign language. The young woman came back; and after the captain had painted the cheeks of the three with vermilion, in token of peace, the two parties started on, for the village.

Pretty soon, up the road charged sixty other Indians――warriors, on horses, ready for a fight; but the women went ahead, to talk peace, and the captain followed, alone, carrying the flag; and as soon as they knew what to expect, the Indians jumped from their horses and hugged the white men and rubbed faces with them.

“Ah hi e, ah hi e!” said the Indians; meaning: “Glad to see you.”

The chief was Ca-me-ah-wait. In the village the men were given salmon trout to eat, so they knew that they were on the Pacific side of the mountains. The village was friendly, but when the captain asked the Indians to return with him to the east side and meet the other white chief and men, they were afraid again――said the white men might be spies for the Minnetarees. Finally Ca-me-ah-wait was persuaded, and started, with eight warriors.

The women wept and wailed, but after a few hours the village followed.

“Well, our troubles began again,” continued Hugh. “To get those Snakes down here was like haulin’ the barge up-stream in some of those rapids. They turned so suspicious that we traded clothes with ’em. We gave ’em our flag to carry. The cap’n had told ’em that the other white chief was to be found at the forks――but when we sighted the forks, the boats weren’t to be seen, and that made matters worse. Where was the other white chief? Of course, we’d calkilated you fellows might be slow, ’cause of the rapids, but we’d hoped.

“Now we gave over our guns, and the cap’n told the chief to have us shot if there was any ambush. We were terrible afraid the whole pack of Injuns’d skip and leave us stranded without hosses, or guns either. The cap’n sent Drouillard and an Injun down to the forks, to get a note that had been stuck on a pole there, for Captain Clark. They brought back the note, and the cap’n pretended it was a note put there by the other white chief, sayin’ he was comin’, but had been delayed. The cap’n wrote another note, by light of a brush fire, telling Captain Clark to hurry. Drouillard and an Injun were to take it down river in the morning.

“That night the Snakes hid out, all ’round us, in the brush, for fear of a trap, while the chief and four or five warriors bunked close beside us. Our scalps felt mighty loose on our heads――and the mosquitoes were powerful bad, too, so we none of us slept much. The cap’n was pretty near crazy. It was touch-and-go, how things’d turn out. The Snakes were liable to skeedaddle, the whole pack of ’em, and carry us off with ’em. The only reason they were stayin’ now, was that Drouillard had told ’em we had one of their women in the main party, and a big black medicine man.”

“Hoo! Dat am me,” asserted York, proudly. “Dis eckspedishun can’t get ’long wiffout Yawk.”

“Next mornin’ we were on the anxious seat. The fate of the expedition hung on whether you fellows arrived pretty soon at those forks and proved that the cap’n had spoken truth. The chief sent out a lot of scouts; and Drouillard and one Injun started early with the note, to find you. They hadn’t been gone more than two hours by sun, when in came a scout at a gallop, makin’ signs. He said he’d seen men like us, with skin color of ashes, travelin’ up-river in boats, and they weren’t far away. Hooray!”

“Hooray!” cheered the listeners.

“That settled the business. Old Ca-me-ah-wait hugged us, and the other Injuns danced and sang, and away raced a gang of ’em――and next thing Drouillard and a crowd met Captain Clark. And now here you all are. So I reckon we’re fixed. They’ll trade us hosses.”

The council was still in progress; but while camp was being made under direction of Sergeant Ordway, out from the council lodge came Shields and Drouillard, to the camp. Drouillard was grinning and capering, evidently very happy. His swarthy cheeks were painted with vermilion, he wore a Snake tippet and decorated shirt; he looked exactly like an Indian.

“What news, Drouillard?”

“Ever’t’ing is all right. We are ’mong frien’s. Dey all glad to haf Sa-ca-ja-we-a, an’ she speak well for us. She find one woman who was capture’ same time as she but escape’. An’ dat chief, he her brudder. Dey haf recognize’, an’ haf weep togedder under one blanket. I mos’ weep too.”

“A princess, be she?” exclaimed Sergeant Pat. “Well, well! Good for the little Bird-woman. An’ what of hosses?”

“Plenty hoss. No more drag canoe.”

The captains came down. They also were dressed as Indians; in their hair had been tied little shells from the “stinking lake,” as the Snakes called the far-off Pacific Ocean. The shells had been bought from other Indians and were considered very valuable. A canopy of boughs and sails was ordered erected; under this another council was held. Chief Ca-me-ah-wait promised to furnish horses. The Indian women set about repairing the men’s moccasins. They appeared to be a kindly tribe――they wondered much at York, and the battered boats, and the guns, and even at the smartness of the little black dog. But they shook their heads when questioned about the country west of the mountains.

“Dey say it is not ze possible for ze white mans to make travel down ze Columbee by boats, an’ ze trail for ze hoss an’ ze foot is ver’ bad,” declared Chaboneau.

“What’s the matter with Sa-ca-ja-we-a, Toussaint?” queried George Shannon, for the Bird-woman’s eyes were red and swollen.

“She much cry. Mos’ all her fam’ly dead while she been away.”

In the morning Captain Clark took Sergeant Pat and ten other men, and started over the mountains to explore beyond the Snake village, in hopes of finding a route by water. They were to send back a man to the Snake village, to meet Captain Lewis there and tell him what had been discovered.

Chief Ca-me-ah-wait and all his people except two men and two women started also for the village, with Sa-ca-ja-we-a and Chaboneau, to bring down horses, for Captain Lewis.

Everybody in the camp was put at work making pack-saddles from oar handles and pieces of boxes tied firmly with raw-hide! Out of sight of the Indians a hole was dug in which to cache more of the baggage, especially the specimens that had been collected.

Five horses were purchased, at six dollars each in trade; the canoes were sunk by rocks in the bottom of the river――and the Snakes promised not to disturb them, while the white men were away. On August 24 the march was begun for the village on the other slope of what are to-day the Bitter Root Mountains. The five horses were packed with the supplies; Sa-ca-ja-we-a and little Toussaint rode on a sixth horse that Chaboneau had bought.

Although this was August, the evenings and nights were so cold that the ink froze on the pens when the journals were being written. The village was reached in the late afternoon of August 26. John Colter was here, waiting. He brought word from Captain Clark that canoes would be of no use; the country ahead was fit for only horse and foot, as far as the captain had gone.

“We had an old Injun for guide who’d been living in another village further west,” related John. “He says we can’t go to the south’ard, for the land’s bare rocks and high mountains without game, and the horses’ hoofs’d be cut to pieces, and the Broken Moccasin Indians would kill us. ’Tisn’t the direction we want to go, anyhow. The Injuns we met said winter was due, with big snows, and soon the salmon would be leaving for lower country. So the captain decided to turn back and advise Captain Lewis that we’d better tackle another road he’d heard of from the guide, farther to the north, into the Tushepaw country on the big river. After we’d struck the big river, which like as not is the Columby, we could follow it down to the Pacific. Anyhow, the Tushepaws might know.”

Captain Lewis immediately began to bargain for twenty horses. The prices were being raised, so that soon a young horse cost a pistol, 100 balls, some powder and a knife.

Sergeant Pat arrived from Captain Clark’s camp below, to ask how matters were shaping.

“’Tis a hard road ahead, lads,” he confirmed. “Cruzatte will tell you that. Sure, wance he was almost lost, himself. I was sint up here to inquire about the prospect of hosses; but what I want to learn, myself, is: are we have the pleasure of the comp’ny of the little Bird-woman?”

“Yes, she’s going.”

For Sa-ca-ja-we-a was. She preferred the white men to her own people.

“Sa-ca-ja-we-a will go. She wants to see the big water,” she had said.