Of the stock of portable provisions there remained only a few cans of soup and about twenty pounds of bear's oil; and there was "no living creature in these mountains, except a few pheasants, a small species of gray squirrel, and a blue bird of the vulture kind about the size of a turtle-dove or jay; even these are difficult to shoot."

Again Captain Clark went ahead. For several days he suffered extremely from hunger and exposure; but on the 20th he descended into an open valley, where he came upon a band of Nez Perce Indians, who gave him food. But after his long abstinence, when he ate a plentiful meal of fish his stomach revolted, and for several days he was quite ill.

Matters fared badly with Captain Lewis's party, following on Clark's trail. On the day of Clark's departure, they could not leave their night's camp until nearly noon, "because, being obliged in the evening to loosen our horses to enable them to find subsistence, it is always difficult to collect them in the morning.... We were so fortunate as to kill a few pheasants and a prairie wolf, which, with the remainder of the horse, supplied us with one meal, the last of our provisions; our food for the morrow being wholly dependent on the chance of our guns." Bearing heavy burdens, and losing much time with the continued straying of the horses, they made but indifferent progress, and it was not until the 22d that they reached the Nez Perce village and joined Captain Clark. Then they, too, almost to a man, suffered severe illness, caused by the unwonted abundance of food. From the high altitudes and the scant diet of horseflesh to the lower levels of the valley and a plentiful diet of fish and camass-root was too great a change.

Two of the men in particular had cause to remember those days. They had been sent back to find and bring on some of the horses that were lost. Failing to find the animals, after a long search, they started to overtake their companions. They had no provisions, nor could they find game of any kind. Death by starvation was close upon them, when they found the head of one of the horses that had been killed by their mates. The head had been thrown aside as worthless; but to these two it was a veritable godsend. It was at once roasted, and from the flesh and gristle of the lips, ears, and cheeks they made a meal which saved their lives.

The Nez Perce villages were situated upon a stream called the Kooskooskee, or Clearwater, which the Indians said was navigable for canoes throughout its lower lengths; so, on September 26th, the party established itself at a point upon the river where a supply of timber could be had, and began canoe-making. In this they adopted the Indian method of hollowing large logs into form by means of fire; and in ten days' time they had made five serviceable boats, and were ready for departure. Meanwhile, they had relied upon the Indians for a daily supply of food, and this had made a considerable reduction of their stock of merchandise for barter. The Nez Perces of that and neighboring villages kept a large number of dogs, which were used as beasts of burden and otherwise, but were not eaten. The travelers bought some of these for food, and found them palatable and nutritious; but this practice excited the ridicule of the savages, who gave to the whites the name Dog-Eaters,—an odd reversal of the condition of to-day. The men were proof against scorn, however, so long as the supply of dog-meat held out; and when they were ready to embark, they bought as many dogs as they could carry, to be eaten on the voyage.

There was no reason to complain of the Nez Perces. There was a noticeable difference, though, between the people of the several villages. Some were generous and high-minded to a degree rarely equaled by the members of any race, while others were shrewd tradesmen only. All seemed worthy of confidence, which was well; for it was necessary to put confidence in them. The horses that had been bought from the Shoshones and brought across the mountains had now to be left behind, and they were surrendered to the care of one of the principal chiefs, to be kept by him until they should be reclaimed upon the return from the coast, at some indefinite time in the future. He discharged this trust with perfect fidelity. Had he failed, the consequences would have been disastrous.

On October 16th, after a rapid passage of the Kooskooskee, the party entered the Columbia; and from that point to the Pacific the journey was without particular adventure, save for the difficulty of passing numerous rapids and cascades. Indian villages were everywhere upon the banks; but their people were of a very low order,—very jackals of humanity; dirty, flea-bitten packs, whose physical and moral constitutions plainly showed the debilitating effects of unnumbered generations of fish-eating, purposeless life. Physical and moral decency usually go hand in hand, even in a state of nature. The Columbia tribes had no conception of either; they were in the same condition then as now, mean-spirited, and strangers to all those little delicacies of behavior that had distinguished the mountain tribes.

The passage of the Narrows, above the Falls of the Columbia, trusting to their fire-hollowed logs, demanded much daring and self-possession. Captain Clark wrote:—

"As the portage of our canoes over this high rock would be impossible with our Strength, and the only danger in passing thro those narrows was the whorls and swills arriseing from the compression of the water, and which I thought (as also our principal waterman Peter Crusat) by good stearing we could pass down safe, accordingly I deturmined to pass through this place, not with standing the horred appearance of this agitated gut swelling, boiling & whorling in every direction which from the top of the rock did not appear as bad as when I was in it; however we passed safe to the astonishment of the Inds."

At other times they were not so successful in this sort of undertaking. The canoes were often overset in the swift water, by being caught in whirlpools or colliding with rocks, causing great inconvenience and resulting in some serious losses of baggage. And the men were performing this arduous labor upon a diet of dog-meat, and almost nothing besides.

No matter what difficulties presented themselves from day to day, the officers never lost sight of the chief purpose of their toils. The journals of those days are replete with keen notes upon the country, its resources, and its people. Soon after passing the Falls, there were to be seen occasional signs of previous intercourse between the Indians and the white traders who had visited the coast,—the squaws would display a bit of colored cloth in their costumes; a few of the men carried ancient guns, and occasionally one was decorated with a ruinous old hat or the remains of a sailor's pea-jacket. These poor people had touched the hem of the garment of civilization, and had felt some of its meaner virtue pass into them. They showed daily less and less of barbaric manliness; they were becoming from day to day more vicious, thievish, and beggarly. The whites had as yet given them nothing worth having, and had taught them nothing worth knowing. This was but natural, considering the character of those who had visited the Columbia region. They were not missionaries nor philanthropists, actuated by high desires, but traders pure and simple, with no thought but gain, and no scruples about means. They were not different from the pioneers of trade in all times and all places.

November 6th there was a meeting with an Indian who spoke a few scrappy words of English; and on the 7th, a day of rain and fog, the men caught a far glimpse of the Pacific, ... "that ocean, the object of all our labors, the reward of all our anxieties. This cheering view exhilarated the spirits of all the party, who were still more delighted on hearing the distant roar of the breakers." The following day, as the boats proceeded upon the waters of the inlet, the waves ran so high that several of the men were made sea-sick.

After eighteen months of unparalleled perseverance, the westward journey was done.



CHAPTER IX

WINTER ON THE COAST

They had reached the coast in the dismal rainy season, when all the life of the region was at the lowest ebb of the year, and when comfort was hardly to be found. The extreme bitterness of Eastern winters was wanting; but the bracing tonic effect of honest cold was also denied them. Through many months they were to suffer from an uninterrupted downpour of rain, driven before the raw sea-winds, which drenched their ardor and made work of any sort painful.

For a long time they were unable to make further progress, because of the persistent storms. Their canoes had not been designed for service in tempestuous open water; so they were compelled to camp where luck left them, having no shelter from the weather, sodden through and through, hungry, cold, many of them ill with a low fever bred by exposure, and only sustained by the knowledge that they were at last upon the Pacific shore. The neighboring Indians were practically amphibious; no stress of weather could hold them in check. They swarmed about the camp at all times, stealing, begging, worrying the worn spirits of the men into tatters. Here, for the first time since leaving St. Louis, it became necessary to abandon conciliatory friendliness, and to offset the native insolence with sternness. There were no fights, for the Indians were too low-born to possess fighting courage; but the necessity for constant alertness was even more trying than open conflict.

For a fortnight the men were engaged in getting acquainted with their surroundings. The hunters made long trips over the hills and along the coast, and such of the others as could be spared from camp went tramping about on errands of discovery. The establishment of winter quarters was perplexing; but on the 24th of November, after a consultation of the whole party, a site was chosen several miles down the coast, where timber could be got for building huts, and where, the hunters said, game was nearest at hand.

To transport the baggage through the rough breakers was a tedious and dangerous undertaking. The men had to wait with patience for the rare hours of comparative calm, making headway as they could, and in the mean time eating and sleeping on the uncovered earth. Sickness increased, until none of the party was wholly free from it. Although in the midst of plenty, they were suffering from hunger. The Indians were besetting them with offers of trade, having large stores of game, fish, and other provisions; but their cupidity was extreme, and, on account of the low state of the treasury, which must be conserved against many months of the future, but few purchases could be made of even the barest necessities. When their own hunters were unsuccessful, the men often went empty.

The unintentional irony of Mr. Jefferson's letter of credit now became apparent. The trading vessels that were used to making yearly visits to this part of the coast from abroad had gone away for the winter, and no white face was seen through all those weary months. Considerable comment has been passed upon the failure of the government to anticipate this contingency by sending a ship to this point to meet the travelers and relieve their inevitable distress. This failure could hardly have been the result of oversight; most probably it arose from the wish of the government to avoid any appearance of meddling in international affairs. The Louisiana Territory extended only so far west as the Rocky Mountains: so, strictly speaking, the expedition had no defensible right upon the coast under Federal patronage. There might well have been serious consequences had a vessel under our flag appeared in those waters, with such a mission. However that may be, the fact remains that no aid was sent, and the men were thrown entirely upon their ability to care for themselves. The journals show how they managed.

"November 28th. It is now impossible to proceed with so rough a sea. We therefore sent several of the men to hunt, and the rest of us remained during the day in a situation the most cheerless and uncomfortable. On this little neck of land we are exposed, with a miserable covering which does not deserve the name of shelter, to the violence of the winds; all our bedding and stores, as well as our bodies, are completely wet; our clothes are rotting with constant exposure, and we have no food except the dried fish brought from the falls. The hunters all returned hungry and drenched with rain, having seen neither deer nor elk, and the swan and brant were too shy to be approached."

Day after day they subsisted upon this dried fish, mixed with sea-water. Captain Clark nearly lost his admirable poise. On the first day of December he wrote:—

"24 days since we arrived at the Great Western (for I cannot say Pacific) Ocian as I have not seen one pacific day since my arrival in this vicinity, and its waters are forming and petially breake with emence waves on the sands and rockey coasts, tempestous and horiable."

Two days later one of the hunters killed an elk—the first to be secured on the western side of the mountains; and that was a holiday in consequence, though the animal was lean and poor enough, and hardly fit to be eaten.

Curiously, the greatest trial of that life was the absence of real hazard. Adventure and danger, which make discomfort tolerable to such men as they, were altogether wanting; in their place was nothing but a dull, dead level of endurance, an expenditure of time and strength to no apparent end.

But by the middle of December the site of winter quarters was gained, and then the log huts began to take form. The men needed this consolation. Under date of the 14th, the journal says:—

"Notwithstanding that scarcely a man has been dry for many days, the sick are recovering.... It had been cloudy all day, at night began to rain, and as we had no cover we were obliged to sit up the greater part of the night; for as soon as we lay down the rain would come under us and compel us to rise."

"December 17th. It rained all night, and this morning there was a high wind; hail as well as rain fell; and on the top of a mountain about ten miles to the southeast of us we observed some snow. The greater part of our stores is wet; our leathern tent is so rotten that the slightest touch makes a rent in it, and it will now scarcely shelter a spot large enough for our beds. We were all busy in finishing the insides of the huts. The after part of the day was cool and fair. But this respite was of very short duration; for all night it continued raining and snowing alternately, and in the morning, December 18th, we had snow and hail till twelve o'clock, after which it changed to rain. The air now became cool and disagreeable, the wind high and unsettled; so that, being thinly dressed in leather, we were able to do very little on the houses."

"December 20th. A succession of rain and hail during the night. At 10 o'clock it cleared off for a short time, but the rain soon recommenced. We now covered in four of our huts. Three Indians came in a canoe with mats, roots, and the berries of the sacacommis. These people proceed with a dexterity and finesse in their bargains which, if they have not learned it from their foreign visitors, may show how nearly allied is the cunning of savages to the little arts of traffic. They begin by asking double or treble the value of what they have to sell, and lower their demand in proportion to the greater or less degree of ardor or knowledge of the purchaser, who, with all his management, is not able to procure an article for less than its real value, which the Indians perfectly understand."

"December 24th. The whole stock of meat being now spoiled, our pounded fish became again our chief dependence. It rained constantly all day, but we still continued working, and at last moved into our huts."

"December 25th. We were awaked at daylight by a discharge of firearms, which was followed by a song from the men, as a compliment to us on the return of Christmas, which we have always been accustomed to observe as a day of rejoicing. After breakfast we divided our remaining stock of tobacco, which amounted to twelve carrots, into two parts; one of which we distributed among such of the men as make use of it, making a present of a handkerchief to the others. The remainder of the day was passed in good spirits, though there was nothing in our situation to excite much gaiety. The rain confined us to the house, and our only luxuries in honor of the season were some poor elk, a few roots, and some spoiled pounded fish."

The first of January witnessed the completion of the rude fortification, which was named Fort Clatsop, in honor of one of the better of the tribes near by,—a tribe whose members, according to Captain Clark, "sometimes washed their hands and faces." Then, the labor of building at an end, life settled into mere routine. The hunters were constantly engaged. No matter what fortune they had, they could not abate their industry, for the persistent moisture made it impossible to keep the meat from spoiling. Other men moved down to the shore, where they employed themselves in boiling sea-water, to obtain a supply of salt; and others were busy hobnobbing with the natives, practicing such wiles as they were masters of, in the effort to obtain small supplies of edible roots.

The officers were engaged, as at Fort Mandan the previous winter, bringing up their journals and copying them out, and in collecting data for a report upon the natural history, ethnology, and trade of the coast. All were living by chance. Sometimes they had plenty; at other times they were reduced to extremities. Once they thought themselves very fortunate in being able to trade for a quantity of whale blubber which the Indians had taken from a dead carcass washed ashore near by. Captain Clark wrote that he "thanked providence for driving the whale to us; and think him much more kind to us than he was to Jonah having sent this monster to be swallowed by us, in sted of swallowing of us as jonah's did."



CHAPTER X

HOMEWARD: IN THE MOUNTAINS

Before the end of January, plans were being formed for the homeward journey. The men were dressing skins and making them into clothing and moccasins, and curing such meat as they could get, so as to be able to vary the fish diet of the Columbia. In February Captain Clark completed a map of the country between Fort Mandan and Fort Clatsop, and sketched a plan he had conceived for shortening the route from the mountains east of the Nez Perce villages to the Falls of the Missouri. His sagacity in this was marvelous; when it came to the point, his plan was found to be perfectly practicable, cutting off 580 miles from the most difficult part of the way. He was a born geographer; indeed, his was a catholic, a cosmopolitan genius.

The greatest cause for uneasiness now lay in the depleted condition of the stock of merchandise intended for trade. On March 16th, when preparations for departure were nearing completion, there is this entry in the journals:—

"All the small merchandise we possess might be tied up in a couple of handkerchiefs. The rest of our stock in trade consists of six blue robes, one scarlet ditto, five robes which we have made out of our large United States flag, a few old clothes trimmed with ribbons, and one artillerist's uniform coat and hat, which probably Captain Clark will never wear again. We have to depend entirely upon this meagre outfit for the purchase of such horses and provisions as it will be in our power to obtain,—a scant dependence, indeed, for such a journey as is before us."

It was hard to persuade the coast Indians to sell the canoes that were necessary for the first part of the trip. The canoe afforded these people their chief means for getting a livelihood, and was valued accordingly. A boat and a woman were, by common consent, placed upon an equality of value,—certainly not an overestimate of the worth of the canoe, if one laid aside chivalry and regarded the squaws dispassionately. When Captain Lewis was compelled to give a half-carrot of tobacco and a laced coat in exchange for one of the little craft, he observed that he considered himself defrauded of the coat. No doubt he had in mind the native scale of values.

"Many reasons had determined us to remain at Fort Clatsop until the first of April," says the journal entry of March 22d. "Besides the want of fuel in the Columbian plains, and the impracticability of passing the mountains before the beginning of June, we were anxious to see some of the foreign traders, from whom, by means of our ample letters of credit, we might have recruited our exhausted stores of merchandise. About the middle of March, however, we had become seriously alarmed for the want of food; the elk, our chief dependence, had at length deserted their usual haunts in our neighborhood and retreated to the mountains. We were too poor to purchase other food from the Indians, so that we were sometimes reduced, notwithstanding all the exertions of our hunters, to a single day's provisions in advance. The men, too, whom the constant rains and confinement had rendered unhealthy, might, we hoped, be benefited by leaving the coast and resuming the exercise of travel. We therefore determined to leave Fort Clatsop, ascend the river slowly, consume the month of March in the woody country, where we hoped to find subsistence, and in this way reach the plains about the first of April, before which time it will be impossible to attempt to cross them."

The next day the canoes were loaded, and in the afternoon the party took leave of Fort Clatsop.

Though the return along the Columbia was less fraught with danger than the descent, it was much more toilsome. Going down, the men had taken large chances in shooting the rapids; but coming back, portage had to be made of all such places. For this work horses were absolutely necessary; and to get a few of these from the Indians, who saw their chance for gain, brought the expedition to a state verging upon downright bankruptcy. Enough horses were secured, however, to enable them to pass step by step over the obstructions in their way, until at last the Great Falls were left behind. From that point they meant to proceed by land; and as the canoes were of no further use, they were cut up for firewood, which could not be otherwise obtained on the treeless plains.

Thus far there had been no adventures of note, except such as grew out of the ill-nature and rascality of the Indians, who swarmed upon the banks of the stream, where they were assembled for their annual salmon-fishing. More than once the officers found it necessary to use harsh measures, in dealing with cases of theft. In striking contrast to these experiences was the meeting with the Walla-Wallas, a short distance above the Falls. These people freely gave to the travelers from their own scant supply of firewood and food; and the chief presented to Captain Clark a superb white horse, a kindness which Clark requited by the gift of his artillerist's sword. After leaving this hospitable village, the party was overtaken by three young men, Walla-Wallas, who had come a day's journey in order to restore a steel trap, inadvertently left behind.

May 5th they came again to the lower villages of the Nez Perces, where they had stopped in the preceding October to make their dugout canoes. By this time they were practically destitute of all resources save those of the mind. To secure food, they were obliged to resort to the practice of medicine! Luckily, the scheme worked. Their patients were almost legion; their fame spread like a prairie fire. Nor was this mere quackery. All of the Indians of the Western slope were more or less afflicted with rheumatism, inflammation of the eyes, and other ills incident to an outdoor life in a humid climate; and the two officers, in the course of preparing themselves for their errand across the continent, had learned to use some of the simple remedies of the day. In some cases they gave relief to the sufferers; in others, wrote Captain Lewis, "we conscientiously abstained from giving them any but harmless medicines; and as we cannot possibly do harm, our prescriptions, though unsanctioned by the faculty, may be useful, and are entitled to some remuneration." They were thus enabled to secure the day's food, and to provide a little against the morrow. But severe trials yet remained.

"May 6th [after taking up the trail].... It was now so difficult to procure anything to eat that our chief dependence was on the horse which we received yesterday for medicine; but to our great disappointment he broke the rope by which he was confined, made his escape, and left us supperless in the rain."

Upon falling in again (on May 8th) with the band of Nez Perces in whose care they had left their horses in the autumn, they found the animals to be now much scattered over the plain, where they had been turned out to graze; but the chief promised to have them collected at once. He said further that his people had been made aware of the approach of the travelers, and of their being without provisions, and that he had a few days before dispatched several of his men to meet them, bearing supplies; but this relief party had taken another trail, and so missed a meeting.

This old chief and his people showed themselves to be genuine friends. After two or three days, when their guests had explained their situation, and offered to exchange a horse in poor flesh for one that was fatter and more fit to be eaten, the chief was deeply offended by this conception of his hospitality, remarking that his tribe had an abundance of young horses, of which the men might use as many as they chose; and some of the warriors soon brought up two young and fat animals, for which they would accept nothing in return.

To hold speech with this tribe was awkward. "In the first place," wrote Captain Lewis, "we spoke in English to one of our men, who translated it into French to Chaboneau; he interpreted it to his wife in the Minnetaree language; she then put it into Shoshone, and a young Shoshone prisoner explained it to the Chopunnish in their own dialect." But the common impulses of humanity found expression in more direct ways, without need for interpretation. Whether as friends or foes, the Nez Perces have always been celebrated for their generosity; and in those hard days they seemed to be just in their element. They could not do enough to show their good will.

The expedition went into camp at a little distance from this village, waiting for their horses to be assembled, and waiting for the melting of the mountain snows, which now rendered further progress impossible. In this camp they remained until June 10, unwilling to impose upon their hosts, and hence were in sore straits most of the time.

"May 21st. On parceling out the stores, the stock of each man was found to consist of only one awl and one knitting-pin, one half ounce of vermilion, two needles, and about a yard of ribbon—a slender means of bartering for our subsistence; but the men have been so much accustomed to privations that now neither the want of meat nor the scanty funds of the party excites the least anxiety among them."

Again they were reduced to a diet of wild roots; but the amiable old chief discovered their situation, paid them a visit, and informed them that most of the horses running at large upon the surrounding plain belonged to the people of his village, insisting that if the party stood in want of meat, they would use these animals as their own. Surely the noble Nez Perces deserved better at the hands of our government than they got in later years. The benefits they were so ready to confer in time of need were shamelessly forgotten.

June 1st two of the men, who had been sent to trade with the Indians for a supply of roots, and who carried all that remained of the merchandise, had the misfortune to lose it in the river. Then, says the journal, "we created a new fund, by cutting off the buttons from our clothes and preparing some eye-water and basilicon, to which were added some phials and small tin boxes in which we had once kept phosphorus. With this cargo two men set out in the morning to trade, and brought home three bushels of roots and some bread, which, in our situation, was as important as the return of an East India ship."

"June 8th.... Several foot-races were run between our men and the Indians; the latter, who are very active and fond of these races, proved themselves very expert, and one of them was as fleet as our swiftest runners. After the races were over, the men divided themselves into two parties and played prison base, an exercise which we are desirous of encouraging, before we begin the passage over the mountains, as several of the men are becoming lazy from inaction."

On the 10th they left this camp and moved eastward, drawing slowly toward the mountains, and keeping an anxious lookout for hunting grounds. In this quest they were not successful; all the wild creatures round about had suffered much in the long winter, and the few they were able to secure were so much reduced in flesh as to be unfit for food. They could only push forward. On the 15th they came to the foothills of the Bitter Root Range; and on the 17th they were well into its heart, ascending the main ridges. But here they soon discovered the impossibility of proceeding in their situation. The snow lay everywhere to a depth of twelve or fifteen feet, completely hiding the trail. To delay until the snow melted would defeat the intention of getting to St. Louis before another winter. To go on was to risk losing themselves altogether. As they stated the question to themselves, frankly, it seemed like a game of tossing pennies, with Fate imposing the familiar catch, "Heads, I win; tails, you lose."

"We halted at the sight of this new difficulty," says Captain Lewis. "... We now found that as the snow bore our horses very well, traveling was infinitely easier than it was last fall, when the rocks and fallen timber had so much obstructed our march." But with the best of fortune, at least five days must be spent in getting through this dreadful fastness. Unfamiliar as they were with the route, the chances against getting through at all were tenfold. "During these five days, too, we have no chance of finding either grass or underwood for our horses, the snow being so deep. To proceed, therefore, under such circumstances, would be to hazard our being bewildered in the mountains, and to insure the loss of our horses; even should we be so fortunate as to escape with our lives, we might be obliged to abandon our papers and collections. It was, therefore, decided not to venture any further; to deposit here all the baggage and provisions for which we had no immediate use; and, reserving only subsistence for a few days, to return while our horses were yet strong to some spot where we might live by hunting, till a guide could be procured to conduct us across the mountains."

Just at that moment they were almost in despair. The next day two of the best men turned back to the Nez Perce villages, to endeavor to procure a guide, while the main party moved down toward the plains, supporting life meagrely, waiting for something to turn up. They were quite powerless until help of some kind should come to them.

To their infinite relief, the messengers returned in a few days, bringing guides, who undertook to conduct the party to the Falls of the Missouri, for which service they were to be recompensed by two guns. Under their care a fresh start was made, and by nightfall of the 26th, passing over a perilous trail, they had found a small bit of ground from which the snow had melted, leaving exposed a growth of young grass, where the horses had pasturage for the night.

"June 27th.... From this lofty spot we have a commanding view of the surrounding mountains, which so completely enclose us that, though we have once passed them [in the preceding September], we almost despair of ever escaping from them without the assistance of the Indians.... Our guides traverse this trackless region with a kind of instinctive sagacity; they never hesitate, they are never embarrassed; and so undeviating is their step, that wherever the snow has disappeared, for even a hundred paces, we find the summer road."

On the 29th they descended from the snowy mountains to the main branch of the Kooskooskee, where they found the body of a deer that had been left for them by the hunters, who were working in advance,—"a very seasonable addition to our food; for having neither meat nor oil, we were reduced to a diet of roots, without salt or any other addition."

The first day of July found them encamped at the mouth of Traveler's Rest Creek, where all mountain trails converged. It was from this place that Captain Clark's plan for a shorter route to the Falls of the Missouri was to be put into execution. But that was not all that lay in their minds.

"We now formed the following plan of operations: Captain Lewis, with nine men, is to pursue the most direct route to the Falls of the Missouri, where three of his party are to be left to prepare carriages for transporting the baggage and canoes across the portage. With the remaining six, he will ascend Maria's River to explore the country and ascertain whether any branch of it reaches as far north as latitude 50 deg., after which he will descend that river to its mouth. The rest of the men will accompany Captain Clark to the head of Jefferson River, which Sergeant Ordway and a party of nine men will descend, with the canoes and other articles deposited there. Captain Clark's party, which will then be reduced to ten, will proceed to the Yellowstone, at its nearest approach to the Three Forks of the Missouri. There he will build canoes, go down that river with seven of his party, and wait at its mouth till the rest of the party join him. Sergeant Pryor, with two others, will then take the horses by land to the Mandans. From that nation he will go to the British posts on the Assiniboin with a letter to Mr. Henry, to procure his endeavors to prevail on some of the Sioux chiefs to accompany him to Washington."

It is hard to understand that indomitable humor. Here they were, just freed from imminent disaster, worn, half-starved, beggared, yet bobbing up like corks from the depths, and forthwith making calm preparations for fresh labors of a grave kind.



CHAPTER XI

RECROSSING THE DIVIDE

By the route made famous as Lewis and Clark's Pass, Captain Lewis's party on July 7th recrossed the Great Divide that separates the Atlantic from the Pacific, and upon the next day they again ate of the flesh of the buffalo. On the 16th they were at the Falls of the Missouri; and two days later they reached the mouth of Maria's River, which they were to explore.

Ten days were spent in this exploration, until further progress was stopped, on the 26th, by an encounter with a band of the dreaded Minnetarees of Fort de Prairie, who had wrought such havoc among the Shoshones,—a set of roving outlaws, who held a reign of terror over all the tribes of the northwestern plains.

Captain Lewis determined to meet these folk as he had met all others. He held a council with them, smoked the pipe of peace, and endeavored to explain to them his mission. When night came, whites and Indians camped together. Lewis knew that he must be on his guard, and had some of his men remain awake throughout the night; but in the early dawn the Minnetarees, catching the sentry unawares, stole the guns of the party and tried to make off with them. A hand-to-hand fight followed. One of the men, in struggling with an Indian and endeavoring to wrest a stolen gun from him, killed him by a knife-thrust. The savages then attempted to drive off the horses; but in this they were thwarted. Being hard pressed, and one of their number shot by Captain Lewis's pistol, they were forced to retreat, leaving twelve of their own horses behind. The whites were the gainers, for they took away four of the captured animals, while losing but one of their own. The Indians had also lost a gun, shields, bows and arrows. Most of this stuff was burned; but about the neck of the dead warrior, whose body remained upon the field, Captain Lewis left a medal, "so that the Indians might know who we were." The Minnetarees never forgot or forgave this meeting. For long years afterward they nursed the thought of revenge, doing what they could to obstruct settlement of the country.

This encounter made it necessary to stop further exploration of Maria's River, and to retreat with all speed toward the Missouri, before the Indians could recover, gather re-enforcements, and offer battle at greater odds. It was not to be supposed that they would pass by the shedding of their tribal blood without seeking immediate vengeance. The explorers had a fair start, however, and after hard riding reached the banks of the Missouri just in time to meet Sergeant Ordway's party descending the river with the canoes and baggage that had been recovered from the resting place on the Jefferson,—a fortunate occurrence indeed. Reunited, the two parties hurried down the river at a great rate, the rapid current aiding the oarsmen, and got out of the way before the Minnetarees appeared.

On August 7th, after a day's cruise of eighty-three miles, they reached the mouth of the Yellowstone, where they found a note that had been left by Captain Clark, saying that he would await them a few miles below. He waited for several days; but then, fearing that Lewis's party had already passed, he moved forward, and the two commands were not joined until the 12th.

In the mean time, after the separation at Traveler's Rest Creek, Captain Clark's party, too, had found a new pass over the Continental Divide,—a road 164 miles in length, suitable for wagon travel. July 8th they came to the spot upon Jefferson River where the canoes and merchandise had been buried the summer before. The boats were raised and loaded, and Sergeant Ordway and his men proceeded with them down the river, while Captain Clark's party set out overland, with the horses, to the Yellowstone. On this trip Captain Clark had an efficient guide in Sacajawea, the "Bird Woman," who brought him to the Yellowstone on the 15th, at the point where the river issues from the mountains through its lower canyon. After traveling for four days along the banks, they halted to build canoes, in which they made the passage to the Missouri, a distance of eight hundred miles, reaching the confluence on August 3d. Aside from the knowledge of the Yellowstone country which was acquired, the only important event of the journey was the loss of all the horses, which were stolen by prowling bands of Indians. This was a serious loss; for they were depending upon the horses for barter with the Mandans, in order to procure a supply of corn for the journey to St. Louis. But there was no time for mourning. The men went into camp at a short distance below the mouth of the Yellowstone, where they occupied themselves, while waiting for Lewis's party, in hunting and dressing skins, which they meant to offer to the Mandans in exchange for needed stores.

While they were thus engaged, on the 11th they hailed a canoe passing up stream, that contained two men who had come from the Illinois country to hunt upon the Yellowstone. These were the first whites seen since April 13, 1805, a period of sixteen months. As a matter of course Clark was famished for news from the United States; but what he got from the wanderers was not cheerful.

"These two men [who had left the Illinois in the summer of 1804] had met the boat which we had dispatched from Fort Mandan, on board of which, they were told, was a Ricara chief on his way to Washington; and also another party of Yankton chiefs, accompanying Mr. Dorion on a visit of the same kind. We were sorry to learn that the Mandans and Minnetarees were at war with the Ricaras, and had killed two of them. The Assiniboins too are at war with the Mandans. They have, in consequence, prohibited the Northwestern Company from trading to the Missouri, and even killed two of their traders near Mouse River; they are now lying in wait for Mr. McKenzie of the Northwestern Company, who had been for a long time among the Minnetarees. These appearances are rather unfavorable to our project of carrying some of the chiefs to the United States; but we still hope that, by effecting a peace between the Mandans, Minnetarees, and Ricaras, the views of our government may be accomplished."

This meant that the solemn treaties of peace concluded at Fort Mandan amongst the several Indian tribes, under the auspices of the expedition, had been broken. The news was displeasing, but probably not wholly unexpected.

August 14th, two days after the reunion of the two parties, they came again to the home of their acquaintances, the Mandans and the Minnetarees. They showed these people every consideration; and the swivel gun, which could not be used on the small boats, was presented to old Le Borgne, who bore it in state to his lodge, thinking his own thoughts. One of the Mandan chiefs joined them here for the journey down the river.

Then occurred another brief conference with the Ricaras, with a renewal of the old pledges of peace and good will toward all men—excepting the Sioux. Reckless as they were in making promises, they, like all their neighbors, weak or strong, would not commit themselves to attempting conciliation of the Sioux.



CHAPTER XII

HOME

After leaving the Ricara villages, the men were possessed by an ardent longing to get home; and the Missouri, as though it had learned to know and respect and love them, and could appreciate their ardor, lent them its best aid. Upon the swift current, and under pleasant skies, the boats flew onward. Seventy-five or eighty miles a day was a common achievement; but even that progress did not keep pace with the speed of their desires. There was nothing more to be accomplished, no reason for lingering by the way; and there was nothing to be guarded against, except possible trouble with the Tetons. As the boats passed through their country, these people appeared in large numbers upon the banks, shouting invitations to land; but the officers felt safer in refusing further intercourse. The Tetons were obliged to content themselves with trotting along upon the shore, keeping abreast of the boats as well as they were able, crying out taunts and imprecations; and one, more zealous in his passion, went to the top of a hill and struck the earth three times with the butt of his gun,—the registration of a mighty oath against the whites, long since abundantly fulfilled.

Occasionally there was a meeting with a trading party from St. Louis or elsewhere, with brief exchange of news and gossip; but they were growing too eager for loitering. On the 9th of September they passed the mouth of the Platte; and on the 12th they met one of their own men who had been sent back with the batteau from Fort Mandan, in April, 1805. This man was now returning to the Ricaras, with a message from President Jefferson, and an independent mission to instruct the Ricaras in methods of agriculture. A few days later they met with one Captain McClellan, an old acquaintance of Captain Clark, who told them that the people of the United States had generally given them up for lost, though the President still entertained hopes of their return.

"September 20th.... As we moved along rapidly we saw on the banks some cows feeding, and the whole party almost involuntarily raised a shout of joy at seeing this image of civilization and domestic life. Soon after we reached the little French village of La Charette, which we saluted with a discharge of four guns and three hearty cheers. We landed, and were received with kindness by the inhabitants.... They were all equally surprised and pleased at our arrival, for they had long since abandoned all hopes of ever seeing us return."

The next day they came to the village of St. Charles; and on the 22d they stopped at a cantonment of United States soldiery, three miles above the mouth of the Missouri, where they passed the day. The concluding paragraphs of the journals must be quoted literally from Captain Clark:—

"September 23rd. Took an early brackfast with Colo Hunt and set out, descended to the Mississippi and down that river to St. Louis at which place we arived about 12 o'clock. We suffered the party to fire off their pieces as a Salute to the Town. We were met by all the village and received a harty welcom from its inhabitants &c here I found my old acquaintance Maj W. Christy who had settled in this town in a public line as a Tavern Keeper. He furnished us with storeroom for our baggage and we accepted of the invitation of Mr. Peter Choteau and took a room in his house. We payed a friendly visit to Mr. Auguste Choteau and some of our old friends this evening. As the post had departed from St. Louis Capt. Lewis wrote a note to Mr. Hay in Kahoka to detain the post at that place until 12 tomorrow which was rather later than his usual time of leaveing it.

"Wednesday 24th of September, 1806. I sleped but little last night however we rose early and commenced wrighting our letters Capt. Lewis wrote one to the presidend and I wrote Gov. Harrison and my friends in Kentucky and sent off George Drewyer with those letters to Kohoka & delivered them to Mr. Hays &c. We dined with Mr. Chotoux to day and after dinner went to a store and purchased some clothes, which we gave to a taylor and derected to be made. Capt. Lewis in opening his trunk found all his papers wet and some seeds spoiled.

"Thursday 25th of Septr. 1806. had all our skins &c suned and stored away in a storeroom of Mr. Caddy Choteau, payed some visits of form, to the gentlemen of St. Louis, in the evening a dinner & Ball.

"Friday 26th of Septr. 1806. a fine morning we commenced wrighting, &c."

That is the last word in the chronicles of the expedition,—modest, unassuming, matter-of-fact—the word of one who had done a difficult thing thoroughly and well, and who was at the end, as he had been throughout, larger than the mere circumstances of his labor. His companion was of the same stalwart stuff. It is hard to choose between them in any essential detail of manhood. Nor were the officers much exalted in temper above the men of their command. When we are celebrating the heroes of our national life, every name upon the roster of the Lewis and Clark Expedition deserves to be remembered.

* * * * *

In this brief narrative, we have just touched the hilltops of the adventures of the expedition. Much of importance has been suggested indirectly; much has been passed by altogether. Each day's work was full of value and had a lasting significance.

One thing remains to be said. We must not forget that the undertaking was not primarily one of adventure; it was an exploration, in the broadest sense of the word. It was not the mere fact of getting across the continent and back that gave the work its character, but the observations that were made by the way. A book of this size would not contain a bare catalogue of the deeds and discoveries of those twenty-eight months; nor could any number of volumes do full justice to their importance. Whoever reads the journals, from whatever point of view, is amazed by what they reveal. Geographers, ethnologists, botanists, geologists, Indian traders, and men of affairs, all are of one mind upon this point. We must wait long before we find the work of Lewis and Clark equaled.



CHAPTER XIII

AFTER LIFE

It would be a pleasant labor, and one well worth the pains, to record the story of the later years of every one of those valiant souls, from the highest to the lowest. But that may not be done here. The best homage that can be rendered to the subordinates is to speak of their common motive: simple-hearted, unselfish devotion to the interests of the nation, unstained by ulterior hope of private gain. A bill was passed by Congress in 1807, granting to the non-commissioned officers and privates, according to rank, a sum of money equal to double pay for the period of service, and, in addition, 300 acres of land from the public domain. But nothing beyond ordinary pay had been definitely pledged in advance. Clearly it was not the expectation of material reward which sustained them.

The bill passed by Congress included also a grant of 1500 acres of land to Captain Lewis, and of 1000 acres to Captain Clark. It is upon record that Lewis, in the spirit which had regulated all of his relations with Clark, objected to this discrimination in his favor.

In March, 1804, before the expedition set out, the newly acquired Louisiana Territory was divided by Congress, the dividing line being the 33d parallel. The southern portion was named the District of New Orleans, and the northern, the District of Louisiana; this name being changed, a year later, to Louisiana Territory.

On March 3d, 1807, Meriwether Lewis was made governor of this territory, with headquarters at the village of St. Louis; and this office he held until he died, October 11, 1809, at the age of thirty-five years.

Although his service in this position was so untimely short, he did much toward laying a firm foundation for the institutions of lawful and orderly life. According to Mr. Jefferson, "he found the territory distracted by feuds and contentions among the officers of the government, and the people themselves divided by these into factions and parties. He determined at once to take no side with either, but to use every endeavor to conciliate and harmonize them. The even-handed justice he administered to all soon established a respect for his person and authority, and perseverance and time wore down animosities, and reunited the citizens again into one family."

In the newly organized society, events rapidly took form. Governor Lewis, with two others (judges of the court), constituted the territorial legislature, which concerned itself at once with matters of development,—providing for the establishment of towns, laying out roads, etc. In 1808 the laws of Louisiana Territory were collected and published, under the supervision of the legislature. This was the first book printed in St. Louis. A post-office was established also in 1808, and soon afterward the first newspaper appeared. From a mere frontier trading settlement, whose conduct was regulated by untamed impulses, St. Louis was being put in the way of its present greatness.

Aside from these purely administrative duties, the governor was further occupied in endeavoring to secure permanent peace with the Indians, and to prepare them for receiving the advantages of civilized life. This was his largest thought, growing naturally out of all that he had seen and done in the years preceding; and in it he was supported and inspired by continued association with Captain Clark, who had been appointed Indian agent for the territory. He had plenty to do; and in such intervals as could be found, he was preparing for publication the history of his travels.

The manner of his death is not exactly known. Although several writers have given their best efforts to erasing what they seem to consider a blot upon his reputation, the weight of opinion appears to sustain Mr. Jefferson's statement that he committed suicide while affected by hypochondria. Mr. Jefferson wrote in his memoir:—

"Governor Lewis had from early life been subject to hypochondriac affections. It was a constitutional disposition in all the nearer branches of the family of his name, and was more immediately inherited by him from his father. They had not, however, been so strong as to give uneasiness to his family. While he lived with me in Washington I observed at times sensible depressions of mind; but, knowing their constitutional source, I estimated their course by what I had seen in the family. During his Western expedition, the constant exertion which that required of all the faculties of body and mind suspended these distressing affections; but after his establishment at St. Louis in sedentary occupations, they returned to him with redoubled vigor and began seriously to alarm his friends. He was in a paroxysm of one of these when his affairs rendered it necessary for him to go to Washington."

He proceeded upon this journey, and was crossing through Tennessee when death overtook him, at the cabin of a backwoodsman where he had stopped for the night. Some of the circumstances point to murder, others to suicide; the truth is conjectural. What does it matter, after all? He had lived largely; had done a man's work; he has a noble place in history.

A better fortune was in store for Captain Clark. He was destined for long and honorable service in public life, and a fair old age.

On the 12th of March, 1807, a few days following Captain Lewis's appointment as governor of Louisiana Territory, Captain Clark was commissioned by President Jefferson as brigadier-general of the territorial militia, and as Indian agent. Dr. Coues says in his excellent biographical sketch that "in those days this title was not synonymous with 'thief,' and the position was one of honor, not to be sought or used for dishonest purposes." Then William Clark was the man for the place. Throughout his public life there is no stain of any sort upon his name. With his strong, decisive, straightforward character, which would not suffer him to yield a jot in his ideas of right and wrong, he must have excited jealousies and made some enemies; but none of these had the hardihood to speak against his integrity.

His best work was accomplished as Indian agent. In that position he was in fact and in name the foster-father of all the tribes who lived in the territory he had helped to explore. It devolved upon him to acquaint the Indians with the nature and purposes of our government, and to bring them into obedience to its laws. More than this, he had a large task before him in endeavoring to reconcile the traditional enmities of the tribes one against another. He succeeded well. He got the confidence of the natives, and kept it; from fearing his power, most of them came to revere the man. When all is said of the Indians,—of their savage craft, their obliquity of moral vision, their unsparing cruelty, and their utter remissness in most matters of behavior, the fact remains that they know how to appreciate candor and honor, and will respond to it as well as they are able. They are slow to believe in wordy protestations: they must have signs more tangible. They will not trust all men of white complexion merely because they have found one trustworthy; each man must prove himself and stand for himself. William Clark gave them a rare exhibition of upright, downright manliness, and they learned to respect and love him. He was soon celebrated from St. Louis to the Pacific, and was called by the name "Red-Head." To this day, old men of the Rocky Mountain tribes speak of him with fondness, saying that our government has never shown another like him.

He was a man of iron; his was an iron rule. In that time, Indian affairs were comparatively free from the modern bureaucratic control; the agent devised and followed his own plans, unhampered by jealous superiors. It has been said that Clark's office was that of an autocrat, a condition too dangerous to be generally tolerated. Clark was indeed an exception. The most absolute power could be intrusted to him with implicit confidence that it would not be abused. The Indians themselves, who were the most directly concerned, did not rebel against his unbending authority. If he was stern, exacting the utmost, and holding them to a strict accountability for violations of law, they knew that his least word of promise was certain of fulfillment. They did not find his rule too onerous under those conditions. While he held sway, the Western Indian country was in an unequaled state of order and decency.

Not the least of our debts to Captain Clark lies in the fact that it was he who brought the journals of the great expedition to public view. Captain Lewis had not been able to finish this work before his death; most of the details of arrangement for publication fell to his surviving companion, with the admirable editorial supervision of Nicholas Biddle. It is often regretted that editorial revision of the manuscripts was considered necessary; for what was thus gained sometimes in clearness and brevity of statement was more than lost in delicious naivete. Mr. Biddle did his part thoroughly, sympathetically; and it was he who succeeded in finding a publisher,—a matter hard to accomplish in that time, troubled as it was with war and with political and commercial uncertainty. The authentic history did not appear until the year 1814.

Meanwhile, Captain Clark had passed to fresh honors. Following the death of Governor Lewis, Benjamin Howard was appointed as his successor. In 1812 the name of the territory was changed to Missouri; and in 1813 Captain Clark was appointed by President Madison as its governor. After being reappointed by Madison in 1816 and 1817, and by Monroe in 1820, he surrendered his office upon the admission of Missouri to statehood, when a governor was elected by vote of the people. In 1822 he was named by President Monroe to be Superintendent of Indian Affairs, and this post he held for sixteen years thereafter, until his death.

He died as a man of his make would wish to die. He was sixty-eight years of age, but still in harness and able to do his work. He passed quietly away at the home of his eldest son, Meriwether Lewis Clark, in St. Louis, on the first day of September, 1838.

And they took of the fruit of the land in their hands, and brought it down unto us, and brought us word again, and said, It is a good land which the Lord our God doth give us.

The Riverside Press Electrotyped and printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A.

THE END