The Bird-Woman of the Lewis and Clark Expedition Part 4

The buffaloes came so fast that they could not stop at the bank.

They fell over the bank on to the rocks near the river.

Many were killed.

Then the Indians came around the bank.

They skinned the buffaloes.

They dried the meat.

They dried the skins to make blankets and houses.

June won der ful draw pic ture spray write cache

THE FALLS OF THE MISSOURI.

One June day Captain Lewis was walking ahead of the boats.

He heard a great noise up the River.

He pushed on fast.

After walking seven miles, he came to the great Falls of the Missouri.

He was the first white man to see these Falls.

He sat down on a rock and watched the water dash and spray.

He tried to draw a picture of the Falls.

He tried to write about it in his book.

But he said it was so wonderful that he could not draw it well nor picture it in words.

When the men came up, they could not take their boats near the Falls.

The Falls are very, very high.

The highest fall is eighty-seven feet high, and the water comes down with a great rush.

So the soldiers had to go around the Falls.

That was a long, long way.

It would be hard to carry all their things around the Falls.

The captains said, "We will make a cache here.

"We will put in the skins and plants and maps.

"We can get them all again when we are coming home."

The soldiers made two caches.

In these they hid all the things they could do without.

Without so much to carry, it would not be so hard to go around the Falls.

dried dug ring sod bot tom branch es earth sides

THE CACHE NEAR THE FALLS OF THE MISSOURI.

To make a cache, the soldiers made a ring on the ground.

They took up the sod inside the ring.

They dug straight down for a foot.

They put dried branches on the bottom and at the sides of this hole.

They put dried skins over the branches.

Then they put their goods into the hole, or cache.

They put dried skins over the goods.

Then they put the earth in.

Then they put the sod on.

The ring did not look as if it had been dug up.

The Indians would not think to look there for goods.

bite fresh rat tle snakes cure morn ing sev en teen beat

HOW SACAJAWEA CURED RATTLESNAKE BITES.

Near the Falls of the Missouri, the party met many rattlesnakes.

The snakes liked to lie in the sun on the river banks.

Some times they went up trees and lay on the branches.

One night Captain Lewis was sleeping under a tree.

In the morning he looked up through the tree.

He saw a big rattlesnake on a branch.

It was going to spring at him.

He caught his gun and killed it.

It had seventeen rattles.

Sometimes the soldiers had to go barefooted.

The snakes bit their bare feet.

Sacajawea knew how to cure the bite.

She took a root she called the rattlesnake root.

She beat it hard.

She opened the snake bite.

She tied the root on it.

She put fresh root on two times a day.

It cured the snake bite.

The root would kill a man if he should eat it, but it will cure a snake bite.

ax les even hail tongues bears e nough knocked wheels griz zly cot ton wood mast wil low

GOING AROUND THE FALLS.

The party had to go up a high hill to get around the Falls.

It would take too long to carry the canoes on their backs.

They could see only one big tree on the plains.

It was a cottonwood.

The soldiers cut it down.

They cut wheels and tongues from it.