The Greatest Works of Emerson Hough – 19 Books in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Emerson Hough
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the distance of 4 miles further the road took us to the most distant fountain of the waters of the Mighty Missouri in surch of which we have spent so many toilsome days and wristless nights. thus far I had accomplished one of those great objects on which my mind has been unalterably fixed for many years, judge then of the pleasure I felt in all(a)ying my thirst with this pure and ice-cold water which issues from the base of a low mountain or hill of a gentle ascent for ½ a mile. the mountains are high on either hand leave this gap at the head of this rivulet through which the road passes.’”
“Go on, Billy,” said Uncle Dick. “That’s all he says about actually crossing the Divide at Lemhi Pass! Tell us where they found the village.”
“Well, sir, that was beyond the Lemhi Pass, up in there, thirty miles from here, about. They’d been traveling, all right. Now that was August 12th, and on August 13th they were over, and had their first drink of ‘chaste and icy water out a Columbia river head spring.’ And all the while, back of us, poor old Clark and his men were dragging the boats up the chaste and icy waters of the Jefferson.
“Now that day they got into rough country, other side; but they didn’t care, because that day they saw two women and a man. They run off, too, and Lewis was ‘soar’ again; but all at once they ran plumb into three more — one an old woman, one a young woman, and one a kid. The young woman runs off. Now you ought to seen Cap. Lewis make friends with them people.
“He gives them some beads and awls and some paint. Drewyer don’t know their language, but he talks sign talk. He gets the old girl to call the young woman back. She comes back. Lewis gives her some things, too. He paints up their cheeks with the vermilion paint. From that time he had those womenfolks, young and old, feeding from the hand.
“So now they all start out for the village, which Lewis knew was not far away. Sure enough, they meet about sixty braves riding down the trail; and I reckon if Meriwether Lewis ever felt like stealing horses, it was then.
“Now the women showed their paint and awls and things. Lewis pulls up his shirt sleeve and shows his white skin. The chief gets down and hugs him, though that was the first white man they’d ever met in their lives. Then they had a smoke, like long-lost brothers. Then they went back to the Indian camp, four miles. Then Lewis allows something to eat would go fine, but old Cameahwait, the head man, hands him a few berries and choke cherries, which was all they had to eat. You see, this band was working east now, in the fall, to better hunting range — they had only bows and arrows.
“Lewis sends Drewyer and Shields out to kill some meat. The old chief makes a sand map for Lewis, but says he can’t get through, that way — meaning down the Salmon River, west of the Divide. Anyhow, they’d have no boats, for the timber was no good. So horses begin to look still better to Lewis.
“They had a good party, but nothing to eat, and the Indians were scared when he got them to know there were more white men back of him, on the east side the hill. He couldn’t talk, so he told it in beads, and jockeyed along till he got a half dozen to start back with him. So on August 16th he got back to this place here again, east of the summit, right where we’re camped now, and he had plenty Indians now — and nothing to feed them.
“But he waited to find Clark, and he didn’t know how far downstream Clark was, and he was afraid he’d lose his Indians any minute. So he writes a note to Clark, and gives it to his best man, Drewyer, to carry downstream fast as he can go. Lewis had promised to trade goods for horses, but the Shoshonis didn’t see any boats, and so they got suspicious.
“Well, it was night. Lewis had the head man and about a couple of dozen others in camp. He was plumb anxious. But next day, the 17th, he tells Drewyer to hot-foot down the river, with an Indian or two along with him. About two hours, an Indian came back and said that Lewis had told the truth, for he had seen boats on the river.
“Now between seven and eight o’clock that morning, Clark and Chaboneau and the Indian girl, Sacágawea, all were walking on ahead of the boats, the girl a little ahead. All at once she begins to holler. They look up, and here comes several Indians and Drewyer with the note from Lewis. There’s nothing to it, after that.”
“Go on, Uncle Dick; you tell it now!” demanded Jesse, all excited.
“You mean about Sacágawea?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It sounds like a border romance — and it was a border romance, literally.
“Here, on the river where she used to live, a young Indian woman ran out of the crowd and threw her arms around Sacágawea. It was the girl who had been captured with her at the Three Forks, six years or more ago, by the Minnetarees! They had been slaves together. This other girl had escaped and got back home, by what miracle none of us ever will know.
“But now, when Sacágawea 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 entrée 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:
CHAPTER XXVII
THE UTMOST SOURCE
The young Alaskans, who had followed faithfully the travels of Lewis and Clark from the mouth of the Missouri to the Continental Divide, now felt exultation that they had finished their book work so soon. But they felt also a greater interest in the thought that they now might follow out a part of the great waterway which not even Lewis and Clark ever had seen. They were all eagerness to be off. The question was, what would be the best route and what would be the transportation?
“We still can spare a month in the West,” said Uncle Dick, “and get back to St. Louis in time to catch the fall school term. That will give us time for a little sport. How shall we get down south, two hundred miles, and back to the Three Forks? What do you say, Billy?”
“Well, sir,” answered the young ranchman, “we’ve got more help than Lewis and Clark had. We can use the telegraph, the telephone, the railway cars, and the motor car — besides old Sleepy and Nigger and the riding horses. We can get about anywhere you like, in as much or little time as you like. If you leave it to me, I’d say, get a man at Dillon or Grayling — I’ve friends in both towns — to take the pack train back to my ranch on the Gallatin — — ”
“But we don’t want to say good-by to Sleepy!” broke in Jesse. “He’s a lot of fun.”
“Well, don’t say good-by to him — we’ll see him when we come north again, and maybe we’ll all go in the mountains together again, some other year.
“But now, to save time and skip over a lot of irrigated farm country, how would it do to take the O.S.L. Railway train, down at the Red Rock, and fly south, say to