The Young Alaskans on the Missouri Part 27

But they never thought of that. All the men wanted was to get away from the boats and get on horseback."

"But they didn't yet know where to go!"

"No, not yet. And now comes the most agonizing and most dramatic time in the whole trip, when it needed the last ounce and the last inch of nerve. Read us what Lewis said in his _Journal_, Rob. He was on ahead, and every man now was hustling, because there were the mountains 'right at them,' as they say down South."

Rob complied, turning the pages of their precious book until he reached the last march of Lewis beyond the last forks of the river:

"'Near this place we fell in with a large and plain Indian road which came into the cove from the N.E. and led along the foot of the mountains to the S.W. o(b)liquely approaching the main stream which we had left yesterday. this road we now pursued to the S.W.

at 5 miles it pa.s.sed a stout stream which is a princ.i.p.al fork of the ma(i)n stream and falls into it just above the narrow pa.s.s between the two clifts before mentioned and which we now saw before us. here we halted and breakfasted on the last of our venison, having yet a small piece of pork in reserve. after eating we continued our rout through the low bottom of the main stream along the foot of the mountains on our right the valley for 5 M{ls.} further in a S.W. direction was from 2 to 3 miles wide the main stream now after discarding two stream(s) on the left in this valley turns abruptly to the West through a narrow bottom betwe(e)n the mountains. the road was still plain, I therefore did not not dispair of shortly finding a pa.s.sage over the mountains and of taisting the waters of the great Columbia this evening.'"

"Well, what do you think? Clean nerve, eh? I think so, and so do you. If he had not had, he never would have gotten across. And Simon Fraser then would have beaten us to the mouth of the Columbia, and altered the whole history of the West and Northwest. Well, at least our beaver, that carried off Lewis's note, did not work that ruin, but it might have been responsible, even for that; for now a missed meeting with the Shoshonis would have meant the failure of the whole expedition.

"A great deal more Lewis did than he ever was to know he had done. He died too soon even to know much about the swift rush of the fur traders into this bonanza. And few of the fur traders ever lived to guess the rush of the placer miners of 1862 and 1863 into this same bonanza--right where we are camping now, on the old Robbers' Trail. And not many of the placer miners and other early adventurers of that day dreamed of anything but gold. The copper mines of this country have built up towns and cities, not merely camps.

"Even had Lewis and his man Fields, whose name he gave to Boulder Creek, and who killed the panther which gave Panther Creek its name--pushed on up Panther Creek, which now is known as Pipestone Creek, and stepped over the crest to where the city of b.u.t.te is to-day, they hardly would have suspected copper. Lewis set down the most minute details in botany, even now. He studied and described his last new bird, the sage hen, with much detail. Yet for more than a month and a half he and his men had been wearing out their moccasins on gold pebbles, and they never panned a color or dreamed a dream of it. It was lucky for America they did not.

"They found copper at b.u.t.te in 1876, the year of the Custer ma.s.sacre. I wouldn't like to say how much b.u.t.te, just over yonder hills, has earned to date, but in her first twenty years she turned out over five hundred million dollars. And twenty years ago she paid in one year fourteen million dollars in dividends, and carried a pay roll of two million dollars a month, for over eight thousand miners, and gave the world over fifty million dollars in metals in that one year! In ten years she paid in dividends alone over forty-three million dollars. In one year she sold more copper, gold, and silver from her deep mines than would have paid three times the whole price we paid for all the Louisiana that Lewis and Clark and you and I have been exploring! And that doesn't touch the fur and the placer gold and the other mines and the cattle and wool and the farm products and the lumber. No man can measure what wealth has gone out from this country right under our noses here. And all because Lewis and his friend and their men wouldn't quit. And their expense allowance was twenty-five hundred dollars!

"This was on our road to Mandalay, young gentlemen, right here through these gray foothills and green willow flats! Beyond the hills was still all the wealth of the Columbia, of the Pacific Northwest also. This trail brought us to the end of all our roads--face to face with Asia.

Was it enough, all this, as the result of one young man's wish to do something for the world? Did he do it? Did he have his wish?"

His answer was in the silence with which his words were received. Our young adventurers, though they had been used to stirring scenes all their lives, had never yet been in any country which gave them the thrill they got here, under the Beaverhead Rock.

"She's one wonderful river!" said Billy Williams, after a time. "And those two scouts were two wonderful men!"

CHAPTER XXVI

THE JUMP-OFF CAMP

Two days later, on August 4th, the travelers had pushed on up the valley of the Missouri, to what was known as the Two Forks, between the towns of Grayling and Red Rock. They pitched their last camp, as nearly as they could determine, precisely where the Lewis and Clark party made their last encampment east of the Rockies, at what they called the Shoshoni Cove. This the boys called the Jump-off Camp, because this was where the expedition left its boats, and, ill fed and worn out, started on across the Divide for the beginning of their great journey into the Pacific Northwest.

Now they were under the very shoulders of the Rockies, and, so closely had they followed the narrative of the first exploration of the great river, and so closely had their own journey been identified with it, that now they were almost as eager and excited over the last stages of the journey to the summit as though it lay before them personally, new, unknown and untried. They hardly could wait to resume their following out of the last entangled skein of the great narrative.

"We've caught them at last, Uncle d.i.c.k!" exclaimed Jesse, spreading out his map on top of one of the kyacks in which n.i.g.g.e.r had carried his load of kitchen stuff. "We've got almost a week the start of them here. This is August 4th, and it was August 10th when Lewis got here."

"And by that time he'd been everywhere else!" said Rob. "Let's figure him out--tying him up with that note the beaver carried off. That beaver certainly made a lot of trouble.

"Lewis left the note at the mouth of the Wisdom on August 4th. On August 5th Clark got there and went up the Wisdom. On August 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th, Shannon was lost up the Wisdom. On August 6th, Drewyer met Clark coming up the Wisdom River and turned him back; and Clark sent Field up the Wisdom after Shannon. Meantime Lewis had gone down to the junction at the Wisdom, not meeting the boats above the junction. He met Clark, coming back down the Wisdom with the boats. They then all went down to the mouth of the Wisdom and camped--that's about a day's march below where we camped, at the Beaverhead Rock.

"Then Lewis saw something had to be done. He told Clark to bring on the boats as fast as he could. He then made up a fast-marching party--himself, Drewyer, s.h.i.+elds, and McNeal--with packs of food and Indian trading stuff; he didn't forget that part--and they four hit the trail in the high places only, still hunting for those Indians they'd been trying to find ever since they left the Great Falls. They were walkers, that bunch, for they left the Wisdom early August 9th, and they got here late on August 10th. That was going some!"

"Yes, but poor Clark didn't get up here to where we are now until August 17th, a whole week later than Lewis. And by that time Lewis had come back down to this place where we are right now, and he was mighty glad to meet Clark. If he hadn't, he'd have lost his Indians. You tell it now, Billy!" concluded Jesse, breathless.

"You mean, after Captain Lewis started west from here to cross the summit?"

"Yes."

"All right. You can see why he went up this upper creek--it was the one that led straight to the top. The Red Rock River, as they now call the stream below what they call the Beaverhead River--it's all one stream--bends off sharp south. The Horse Prairie Creek takes you straight up to Lemhi Pa.s.s, which ought to be called the Lewis Pa.s.s, but isn't, though he was the first across it. Lewis was glad when he got to what they called the source, the next day after that.

"Now, he didn't find any Indians right away. I allow he'd followed an Indian road toward that pa.s.s, but the tracks faded out. He knew he was due to hit Columbia waters now, beyond yon range, but what he wanted was Indians, so he kept on.

"Now all at once--I think it was August 11th, the same day he left camp here--about five miles up this creek, he saw an Indian, on horseback, two miles off! That was the first Indian they had seen since they left the Mandans the spring before. But Mr. Indian pulled his freight. That was when Lewis was 'soarly chagrined' with s.h.i.+elds, who had not stayed back till Lewis got his Indian gentled down some; he had him inside of one hundred yards at one time. He 'abraided' s.h.i.+elds for that; he says.

"But now, anyhow, they knew there was such a thing as an Indian, so they trailed this one, but they couldn't catch him, and Lewis was scared he'd run all the other Indians back West. But on the next morning he ran into a big Indian road, that ran up toward the pa.s.s. There was a lowish mountain, running back about a half mile. The creek came out of the foot of that mountain----"

"I know," interrupted John, who had his _Journal_ spread before him.

"Here's what he said:

"'At 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 1/2 a mile. the mountains are high on either hand leave this gap at the head of this rivulet through which the road pa.s.ses.'"

"Go on, Billy," said Uncle d.i.c.k. "That's all he says about actually crossing the Divide at Lemhi Pa.s.s! Tell us where they found the village."

"Well, sir, that was beyond the Lemhi Pa.s.s, 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 s.h.i.+rt 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 s.h.i.+elds 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, Sacagawea, 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 d.i.c.k; you tell it now!" demanded Jesse, all excited.

"You mean about Sacagawea?"

"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 Sacagawea. 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.