Part 9

“Dis chile dunno,” stammered York, his own eyes popping. “Mebbe he ain’t gwine to look foh dis kind ob b’ar. If he jes’ a young b’ar, what mought his daddy be? Hoo!”

“Don’t you or the men take any chances with these animals, Will,” cautioned Captain Lewis, to Captain Clark. “There are lots of signs of them now.”

Captain Clark and Reuben Fields did take a chance, a few days later. In the dusk they met a monster brown bear (which was a better name for it than white bear, although grizzly bear is better still) not far from the evening camp. When they shot together, he roared so loudly that the very air shook, but fortunately he tried to escape. They followed him and shot him eight times more; and even then he swam clear into the middle of the river, and died on a sand-bar.

It was quite a job to get him into camp. He weighed about 600 pounds. The captains measured him. From his hind feet to his nose was eight feet, seven and a half inches; he was five feet, seven and a half inches around the chest, three feet, eleven inches around the neck, and one foot, eleven inches around the fore-legs! His heart was as large as an ox-heart, and his claws four and one-half inches in length.

But William Bratton “caught” the worst bear, to date. About five o’clock the boats were just being landed, for night camp, when a great crashing and shouting were heard; out from the brush burst William, and bolted, staggering and gesturing, for the nearest boat. He had lost his hat, his buckskin suit was torn, he could scarcely speak.

“Another man in a hurry,” quoth Patrick Gass, as everybody reached for a gun. “Injuns, mebbe?”

“He-he-help!” panted William, lunging into the shallows and fairly falling across the gunwale of the white pirogue.

“Speak, man! What’s the matter?” demanded Captain Lewis.

William heaved and gasped.

“Bear! White bear! Chasing me――close behind.” Puff. Puff. “Shot him――chased me――mile and a half――almost caught me. Look out!”

“Whereabouts? Which direction?”

“Down river――back in brush, sir.”

“Hah!” exclaimed the captain. “I’ll go after him. Drouillard, the two Fields, Willard, Potts, Shields, Pryor, come with me. Bratton’s found another bear. Want to go, York?”

“Nossuh, nossuh!” asserted York, with decisive emphasis. “I’d like to go mighty well, Marse Merne, but I got to stay right hyah an’ take keer ob Marse Will.”

Away hastened Captain Lewis and the seven men. All eyes scanned the shore, and many tongues plied the exhausted hunter with questions. He said that after shooting the bear he had run a mile and a half, with the bear roaring and floundering behind him, but unable quite to overtake him because of its wound.

In about an hour back came the hunting party, into camp――Alec Willard and John Shields, who were the two largest members, weighted down with an enormous hide and a great quantity of fat.

They all said that after following Bratton’s trail back, for a mile, they had come upon the bloody trail of the bear. He had turned aside and had gone another mile, until he had stopped, to dig a hole or bed two feet deep and five feet long. There they had killed him.

“An’ he ought to’ve been dead long before,” declared John Shields. “Bratton had shot him straight through the chest. He was a tough one.”

“Faith, as the cap’n says, it’s safer to fight two Injuns together than wan white b’ar by hisself,” proclaimed Pat.

The fat of this bear yielded eight gallons of oil, for greasing the guns and keeping the men’s hair slick.

On the third day after, six of the men had a pitched battle with another bear. He put them all to flight――almost caught several of them; and did not fall until he had been shot eight times. And while this was going on at the shore, Cruzatte’s canoe, out in the stream, narrowly escaped a fatal upset.

A gust of wind struck the sail, while Chaboneau was steering. Chaboneau lost his head, dropped the oar, began to cry aloud with fright. The canoe tilted, tilted, water flowed in――and over on its side turned the boat. The sail’s rope had been jerked out of Cruzatte’s hand.

“Seize de rudder, Toussaint! Ketch de rope――queeck! Pull on de sail! We all drown! Do de right t’ing or I shoot you!” ordered Cruzatte, scrambling along the gunwale.

Only young Sa-ca-ja-we-a was calm. Holding her baby, she reached right and left and gathered the articles that were floating off. In a moment more the canoe righted, but was full of water. Baling and rowing, the men got her beached just in time.

“Dat stupid Chaboneau! Hees wife is better man dan heem,” scolded Drouillard. “He near los’ all de fine instruments an’ de papers of the captains. Mebbe drown ever’body, too.”

As it was, a great deal of medicine had been spoiled by the soaking.

The six victors over the one bear brought him in at last. Because of the battle, this place was known as Brown-bear-defeated Creek.

XI

WHICH WAY TO THE COLUMBIA?

“Wirrah, but tired I am!” groaned Patrick Gass.

It was June 3, and in the nineteen days they had come more than 300 miles from Brown-bear-defeated Creek. What with the constant wading and tugging to conquer the narrow, swift current and the strong head winds, well might all groan.

Night alarms had disturbed the camps. Once the men had been aroused only just in time to drag the captains’ hide lodge away from a spot upon which a burning tree was about to fall; and, again, a stupid buffalo bull had charged through, and only the little black dog had saved the camp from much damage.

But the Rock or Shining Mountains were nearer. On Sunday a week ago Captain Lewis, climbing a hill, had seen them, to the west. The Sho-sho-nes or Snake Indians might be expected any day. Their country was near, also.

Now the river had split: one branch for the north, one for the southward; and the captains did not know which branch to follow. So they ordered camp here at the forks, below present Fort Benton in north central Montana.

A travel-worn camp it was, too――of bearded, long-haired men, their buckskin and elk-hide suits shriveled by water, their moccasins in tatters, their hands blistered and their feet sore from rocks and the prickly-pear cactus.

“De nort’ branch――she de true Missouri,” asserted old Cruzatte. “See how swift an’ muddy she is, jus’ like de Missouri. Ain’ dat so, Drouillard?”

Drouillard nodded.

“I sartin she true Missouri. I lif on Missouri most my life, an’ I know. De odder stream too clear an’ smooth.”

“For that very r’ason it comes out o’ the Rock Mountains, ’cordin’ to the cap’ns,” put in Pat. “An’ the bed of it be round stones, the same as are fetched down out o’ the mountains. Not but what I favor the north branch myself, as the more likely direction. We’ll find the Columby across to the north, an’ not to the south, I’m thinkin’.”

“The Minnetarees down at the Mandan town told us the Missouri was clear, at its head, didn’t they?” queried George Shannon. “And there are some big falls to pass.”

“Mebbe de nort’ branch get clear, in leetle time,” argued Drouillard. “She de true Missouri, for de Columby.”

“Oui. So t’ink we all,” agreed Cruzatte and Chaboneau and Lepage and Labiche. “De odder branch go too far sout’.”

This was the opinion of the majority of the men. But――――

“We’ve got to be might careful,” argued George. “The Missouri and the Columbia are supposed to head right near each other, the one on this side the mountains, the other on ’tother side. It would be a bad mess if we crossed and found we were in the wrong place. We haven’t any time to lose.”

Evidently so thought the captains. For the next day Captain Lewis took Drouillard, Sergeant Nat Pryor and several others, to explore by foot up the north fork. Captain Clark took Chaboneau, Sergeant Pat and several others, to explore up the south fork. Peter and the rest of the men remained at camp, together with Sa-ca-ja-we-a and little Toussaint.

This gave them the opportunity to sit in their bare feet, mend their moccasins and leggins, and pick green wild currants and ripe wild gooseberries. Sa-ca-ja-we-a, who was always busy, dressed a doe-skin for herself and little Toussaint.

The Captain Clark party returned on the third day, in the rain. They had gone up along the south branch about forty miles――had walked about 100 miles, all told, said Pat, with a wry face and a limp; Reuben had been chased so shrewdly by a big bear, after his gun had missed fire, that in climbing a tree he kicked the bear’s mouth, and as nobody could get to the tree the bear had kept Reuben there for an hour; rain and snow both had made the trip uncomfortable――but the river appeared to lead west of south, and the captain was convinced that it was the true Missouri.

“He’s the commandin’ officer; still I don’t agree with him,” said Pat. “An’ I hope he’s wrong, for the other river’s the ’asier. I’d rather sail in a boat than on foot, any day.”

“Did you sight any falls, Pat?” asked Joe Fields.

“Niver a fall――but I felt some,” answered Pat.

Captain Lewis was yet out. He and his party did not return this evening, nor the next day; and on the following day everybody was worried about them. But that afternoon at five o’clock they came toiling in, hungry, soaked with the cold rain, and weary after a five days’ tramp of 120 miles.

“I’m glad to see you, Merne,” exclaimed Captain Clark, his face lighting up amidst his thick red hair and shaggy red beard. “What’s the news?”

“We’ve been along the north fork sixty miles and it doesn’t head toward any mountains. I don’t believe it’s the Missouri, although Drouillard insists it must be.”

“I don’t believe so, either, Merne. The south fork looks the better of the two, to me.” And they paced together to their lodge.

It was a cheery crowd, in spite of the dangers and discomforts and the hard work. That evening the sky had cleared, there was a big supper of venison, the feet of the men who had stayed in camp were about well, and Cruzatte tuned up his fiddle for a dance.

Toward noon of the next day, Sunday, June 9, a parade was ordered, to hear what the captains had decided. The men left their tasks of dressing skins and repairing weapons, and fell in, under their sergeants.

Captain Lewis stood straight and slim before them, in his fringed but stained buckskin suit. His bright hair was tied in a queue behind, and he, like Captain Clark, had grown a beard――yellow as his hair.

“Captain Clark and I have consulted together, men,” he said. “We have examined our maps, and compared our notes; and we believe that the southern fork is the true Missouri. It has all the signs of a mountain stream, the Indians never have mentioned passing any south fork in order to proceed on to the great falls, and this south fork certainly bears off for those snowy mountains to the southwest which are undoubtedly the Rock Mountains that divide the waters of the Missouri and the Columbia. Accordingly we will take the south fork. That we have chosen as the Missouri; the north fork I have had the honor to entitle Maria’s River, as a tribute to my cousin in Virginia, Miss Maria Wood, of Charlottesville.”

“Do you wish to hear from any of the men, Captain?” inquired Captain Clark. “Some of them may have an opinion to offer.”

“Well, they favor the north fork, I understand,” answered the captain, with a smile. “I’ll be glad to hear what they may say.”

Who was to speak? Patrick Gass, of course. Pat coughed, and saluted.

“What is it, Sergeant? Go ahead. Speak up, man.”

“It’s this way, sorr――Captain, sorr. Yez are the commandin’ officers――ye an’ Cap’n Clark, an’ if yez say the south fork be the Missouri, o’ course the Missouri it is, an’ we’ll all follow yez, sorr. Sure, all we’re afraid of, sorr, is that we get down yonder at the foot o’ the snowy mountains, an’ on the other side there won’t be anny C’lumby at all, sorr. But we’ll go with yez, sorr, if that’s where yez go. Thank yez, sorr.” And Patrick saluted again, quite out of breath.

“Captain Clark and I will take the responsibility. We’ll try the south fork, men,” declared Captain Lewis. “Parade is dismissed.”

“Thray cheers for the captains, boys,” shouted Patrick Gass. And as the parade broke, into the air was flung every cap and hat and every voice rang true.

Immediately preparations were begun. The heavy baggage and the extra supplies were to be left here, and so was one of the pirogues. Men were set at work digging a large hole in which to store the goods. It was to be kettle shaped――small at the top, then hollowed out, round, until it was six or seven feet deep. The soil was dumped upon blankets and robes, and thrown into the river, so that there should be no trace of any digging, lest the Indians find and rob. The bottom and sides were to be lined with dry brush and hides, to keep the moisture from the goods. The storehouse was called a _cache_, from the French word, “_cacher_,” to conceal.

The red pirogue was to be hidden on an island at the mouth of Maria’s River.

John Shields, the blacksmith, and Alec Willard worked at bellows and forge, repairing tools and spontoons; and William Bratton repaired broken guns.

However, the captains were still cautious regarding the right route to strike the Columbia on the other side of the mountains; and early the next morning, June 11, Captain Lewis took Drouillard, John Shields, George Gibson and Si Goodrich, to scout ahead up that south fork. He promised to send back word to Captain Clark, who was to follow, with the boats and party, as soon as the cache was completed.

On the morning of the twelfth the white pirogue and the six canoes headed up the south fork, before a fair wind.

“We’re off,” exulted Sergeant Pat.

Everybody was in high spirits――everybody except Chaboneau and Sa-ca-ja-we-a.

“Sa-ca-ja-we-a she seeck,” announced Chaboneau. “I do not know what is matter. Mebbe stomick, or mebbe she ketch col’ in all dat rain.”

Yes, the little sixteen-year-old Bird-woman was feeling very ill. Now for almost a thousand miles she had carried baby Toussaint, had tended the lodge fire and done other Indian woman work; sometimes she had been wet, frequently cold and foot-sore, but she never had complained or lagged.

“You must let her rest, Chaboneau,” said Captain Clark, that evening at camp. “Keep her in bed. York, you look after her. Never mind me. Make her some broth. Peter, you help her with little Toussaint. Hold him, if she’ll let you.”

So Peter took charge of baby Toussaint――who really was a very good baby. He rarely cried, and even rarely smiled. He lay in his swathings of skins and stared with his bright black eyes.

The day had been an easy one for nobody. The river soon had run swiftly; it was broken with many sand-bars and gravel-bars, and by boulders upon which several times the canoes almost capsized.

The next day’s voyage was as bad, and worse. Snow mountains appeared on the south as well as at the west. There were numerous islands, more shoals and boulders, and the tow-lines were used. Sa-ca-ja-we-a, lying on a couch of skins in the white pirogue, had not improved. She moaned, and tossed, and babbled strange words. Peter and York watched over her and the baby, although occasionally York had to tumble out and haul on the tow-line.

“Pshaw!” muttered Captain Clark, that night, gazing, non-plussed, at Sa-ca-ja-we-a, who did not recognize him. “We mustn’t lose our little Bird-woman. She’s to be our guide to her own people, so that they will show us the way across the mountains. In fact, the fate of the expedition may depend upon her.”

“I ver’ worried,” confessed Chaboneau. “Never see her dees way before.”

The next day the rapids were more severe. Wading breast-deep in the cold water and slipping on the rocky bottom, the men scarcely could haul the boats against the current. All the morning was consumed in making six miles. Just at noon, when halt was ordered, for dinner, a figure was seen, ahead, hurrying down along the banks.

It was John Shields, from Captain Lewis. As he approached, he swung his hat.

“Hurrah, boys!” he shouted. “We’re all right. This is the trail. The captain’s found the falls!” He came panting and puffing into camp. “It’s the true Missouri.”

“How far up are the falls, Shields?” asked Captain Clark, eagerly.

“About twenty miles, sir. But you can’t get to them with boats.”

And that was so. The next day the rapids of the river were more furious, and the men were constantly dodging rattlesnakes on the banks. Shields was sent ahead to tell Captain Lewis that the party were on their way. Captain Clark ordered a noon halt near a large spring of sulphur water, to wait for Captain Lewis. The roaring of the falls had already been heard above the noise of the river.

Sa-ca-ja-we-a was carried to the sulphur spring. She drank quantities of it and soon felt much better.

“Now be very careful what she eats, Chaboneau,” warned Captain Clark.

At two o’clock Captain Lewis arrived from above. He was enthusiastic over the falls, but he had had several narrow escapes from death, according to Drouillard.

He had been seriously ill, and only choke-cherry tea had cured him. When he had neglected to reload his rifle after shooting a buffalo, a huge “white bear” had charged him, driven him into the river, but had retreated before the captain’s leveled pike or spontoon. That same day three buffalo bulls at once had run at him, heads down, until he fortunately had turned on them, whereat they also turned. And that night he slept with a rattlesnake over four feet long coiled on a log just above his head.

“I t’ink de cap’n haf plenty excitement, in one day,” declared Drouillard.

XII

SEEKING THE BIRD-WOMAN’S PEOPLE

There was a series of five falls, said Captain Lewis, connected by cataracts; and in the top of a tall cottonwood tree on an island at the foot of the uppermost fall an eagle had built her nest. The lowest fall was only five miles above the camp; but the boats would have to be carried around all the falls.

Captain Clark took some of the men, to explore across country, from the camp to the head of the falls, and stake the best route for the portage or carry.

A big cottonwood tree near camp was cut down. Its trunk was twenty-two inches through, and cross-sections were sawed off, to supply wheels for wagons on which the boats should be loaded. The mast of the white pirogue was brought ashore, for wagon axles. The white pirogue was hidden in some willows, and a hole was started, as another cache where more goods were to be left.

The men were told to double-sole their moccasins, because the prickly-pear cactus grew thickly all along the line of march. And hunters were sent out, to get meat and skins.

The captain had fixed upon a spot above the upper fall, opposite several islands, for the end of the portage. It was eighteen miles.

“I dunno,” commented black York, shaking his woolly head dubiously. “A monster white b’ar done hab dat place already.”

For York had been chased clear into camp by a bear; and when the captain had taken three men and gone out to find the bear it had driven another of the hunters, John Collins, into the river.

“Nice quiet place to camp,” spoke Dick Windsor.

A quantity of the baggage and one canoe were loaded upon one of the little wagons, and led by the two captains, the men ranged themselves before and behind, to haul and push. Away they went, with the wagon jolting and creaking, and threatening to fall apart.

Chaboneau and York and Peter had been left here at Portage Creek to care for Sa-ca-ja-we-a again. The Bird-woman had improved so much that she was able to walk about――but thereupon she had eaten a lot of dried fish and little ground apples (_pomme blanc_: white apple, Chaboneau called it), which had made her ill once more and also had made the captains very angry at Chaboneau and at Peter too. The Bird-woman was hard to control; she thought she ought to eat, to get well.

In the morning Captain Clark came back down with all the men except Sergeant Pat, Joe Fields and John Shields, after another load. The wagon had broken on the trip up, and they had had to carry the baggage half a mile on their backs. They were very tired.

“Dat cactus so bad it steeck my moccasin to my feets,” complained Cruzatte.

There was quite a bit of news, time to time, from the White-bear Islands camp, where Patrick Gass and a few other men under Captain Lewis stayed to cover the frame of an iron canoe with skins. The bears were bad. Joe Fields had met three at once and had been chased into the river; had fallen, cut his hand and knee on the rocks and bent his gun. Drouillard and Reuben Fields had climbed a tree, and from it Drouillard had killed a bear with one shot through the head. The bear’s nose was as large as an ox’s, his front foot measured nine inches wide, his hind foot measured nearly twelve inches long, not counting the claws. That same night another bear entered the camp and carried away some of the buffalo meat. The little black dog was kept busy all the nights, growling and barking.

“Dose islands full of bear,” said old Cruzatte. “I never know bear so mean. Mebbe if we don’ go in dere an’ clean dem out, dey eat some of us. I sleep on my gun de whole night.”

“One good thing: that pesky swivel’s been cached at the foot of the first falls,” quoth Robert Frazier. “We don’t have to lug a cannon around any more.”

By the last of June all the stuff had been moved from Portage Creek. But there had been a rain, making the trail soft; so part of the final two wagon-loads was dumped about four miles on the way, and camp was made, with the rest, at Willow Run Creek, two miles further along, inland from the Great Falls.

In the morning everybody except Captain Clark, York, Peter, and the Chaboneau family went back, with one of the two carts, to bring on the baggage that had been left behind on the plain.

“Wouldn’t Sa-ca-ja-we-a like to see the Great Falls?” asked the captain, kindly.

The little Bird-woman grinned at the Red Head’s notice of her. He was, to her, a big chief. Of course she would like to see the wonders of this medicine river that roared.

“I t’ink I like to see, myself,” ventured Chaboneau. “I been so busy I see notting yet.”

And that was so, not only with Chaboneau, but with others of the men; for the Portage Creek end of the trail was below the falls and the White-bear Islands end was above the falls, and the trail itself cut across several miles from the river.

“We’ll go over, while the baggage is being brought up,” said the captain. “York, you come if you want to.” He surveyed Peter――anxious Peter. “Peter, I’ll have to detail you to guard the baggage here. You must be a soldier. I’ll lend you my pistol. You won’t need to use it. But keep the stuff spread out to dry. We’ll be back soon. It’s only three or four miles.”

Away they hastened, the Bird-woman carrying small Toussaint in a net on her back. Watching them go, Peter gulped. Was he never to see the roaring falls? Still, he felt proud to be left on guard, like any soldier.

How hot and sultry was the morning! All the landscape of rock and prickly pear and low stiff brush lay smothering, and no sound was to be heard save the dull booming of the river, unseen in the north. Peter sat down, in the shade of the baggage on the wagon.

Presently a black cloud welled over the crests of the shining snow mountains in the west. More rain? Peter watched it vigilantly. It grew swiftly, and rolled into mid-sky. Peter rose with haste and covered the baggage with buffalo hides again. It was a fearful looking cloud, as it bellied and muttered, and let fall a dense veil.

On swept the veil, hanging from the cloud; under the wagon crept Peter. A moment more――and whish! crackle! r-r-r-r-r-r! Wind! Rain! Hail! The air turned black! Such wind! Such rain! But such hail!!