“Sure,” said Patrick Gass, “if I wasn’t so sore in me feet an’ empty in
me stomick I could close my eyes an’ think myself back in a Pennsylvany
barnyard, with the chickens all a-cluckin’.”
“But instead, we’re four thousand miles from old ‘Pennsylvany,’ Pat,
and in a country where even the dogs are so hungry they eat your
moccasins while you sleep,” retorted George Shannon. “The pesky brutes
stole my best pair last night.”
This was the day of September 5. Ca-me-ah-wait and Toby and John Colter
and Pat had spoken truly when they had predicted a tough trip. The
region west from the Sho-sho-ne village proved impassable. Old Toby
had led northward, by hard trail up and down. The two captains rode in
the advance; the hunters scouted for game but found little; York’s big
feet had failed him and he needs must ride until well; Sa-ca-ja-we-a,
of course, rode, carrying on her back baby Toussaint; everybody else
trudged afoot, each man leading two pack-horses.
The horses soon were worn out by scrambling amidst rain and snow, and
falling on the sharp rocks.
What with hauling and shoving and chasing them, the men had decided
that boats were easier, after all.
The route had crossed the crooked range, to the east side again, and
here had struck a Tushepaw Indian camp of thirty-three lodges. Now the
company were lying around, waiting and resting, while the captains
traded for more horses.
“I can not onderstan’ one word,” complained Chaboneau. “Neider can
Sa-ca-ja-we-a.”
Old Toby himself scarcely was able to interpret for the captains. The
language was a curious mixture of grunts and cries. Nevertheless, a
kind and hospitable people were these light-skinned Oo-tla-shoots, of
the great Tushepaw or Flat-head nation. They were rich in horses, and
generous with their roots and berries; and fearing that these strange
white men, who rode without blankets, had been robbed, they threw about
their guests’ shoulders handsome bleached buffalo robes.
These Oo-tla-shoots, who were on their way eastward to hunt the
buffalo, signed that the best trail for the big water beyond the
mountains was the Pierced Nose trail, northward still. If the white men
crossed the mountains by that trail, they would come to a swift river
that joined the Big River, down which were falls and a big water where
lived other white men.
Old Toby, winking his eyes violently, said that he knew. He once had
been upon that trail of the Pierced Noses, by which they hunted the
buffalo. His four sons had left him, several days back; but another
son had appeared, and he asserted that they two would guide the white
chiefs, by the Pierced Nose trail onward from the No-Salmon River, and
so to the stinking lake under the setting sun.
“What white men do we find, at the Pacific Ocean, George?” asked Peter;
for both the Snakes and the Flat-heads spoke of “white men” down the
Columbia, which was known only as the Big River.
“Traders, Peter. White men from the United States, and from other white
nations――England and Russia――who sail there in large boats and trade
for furs. Perhaps we’ll all return to the United States by one of those
boats.”
“At No-Salmon River is where we enter the Pierced Nose trail, is it?”
mused Sergeant Nat Pryor. “I reckon that’s a correct name. ’Cordin’ to
Chaboneau and Drouillard the salmon aren’t to be found in any waters
east of the Rock Mountains. They all stay west.”
“Oh, murther, an’ aren’t we west o’ the mountains, yet?” exclaimed Pat.
Still north pushed the company, down through the Bitter Root Valley of
western Montana, with the line of mountains on the left rising ever
colder and higher. In four days’ journey was reached a broad Indian
trail, along a river running east. It was the Pierced Nose trail, said
old Toby, and the river was the No-Salmon River. The Indian road was to
be followed westward, over the mountains, but on the way there would be
no game.
So the captains called the No-Salmon (to-day the Lou Lou) River,
“Traveler’s Rest Creek,” because here camp was made while the men
hunted and mended clothes before again climbing the mountains.
The Pierced Nose trail was plain at first, but on the Idaho side of
these the Bitter Root Mountains it soon was lost amidst many other
trails, and the snows and the thick timber and the bare rocks. Old Toby
himself was well-nigh confused; he had not been along the main trail
for many years.
The mountains were very broad, very wild. The jumble of high ridges was
steep, and constantly drear with rain and snow. The horses strayed,
and went lame, and fell down and broke things. The hunters sometimes
brought in a lean deer, sometimes a few grouse, and frequently nothing,
so then for all hands there were only a sip of canned soup, and berries.
It was on September 14 that the first of the colts was killed, to be
eaten. The soup and the berries were making the men ill. He was a nice
little black colt, and Peter hated to have him killed; but what else
could be done? On this day, also, they arrived at a clear, rocky river
down which extended the Indian road.
“Is this the Big River?” asked Captain Lewis, hopefully, of old Toby.
“Is this the Big River, with the falls and the white men?”
“Koos koos kee,” grunted old Toby. And that was all he would say.
So “Koos-koos-kee” was the river named.
“Dat one funny name,” chuckled Chaboneau. “Ze ‘Some-odder-river.’” And
he laughed. Not for considerable time did he explain to his comrades
that “koos koos kee” was only Indian for “This is not the river; it is
some other river.”
But the Kooskooskee or Clearwater River does the stream remain unto
this day.
“More mountains! Wirrah, more mountains!” lamented Patrick Gass, when
the Indian road left the banks of the stony Kooskooskee and through the
roughest kind of a country started upward again. “Will we niver be out
into some place where it’s open enough to see ’round a corner?”
“Nebber so col’ in mah life befoh,” chattered York, plodding on in
frozen moccasins, with snow to his ragged knees. “We got to follow
Marse Will an’ Marse Merne――but how do dis hyar Tobe know whar he
gwine?”
Sa-ca-ja-we-a pointed ahead from her pony’s back. She had learned to
understand even York’s speech. She was very smart and quick.
“Pony rub bark,” she said. For, as anybody ought to be able to
perceive, the snow-covered trail was marked above by places where
Indian pony packs had scuffed low-hanging branches. This to Peter was
very plain.
This night the brown colt was killed, for supper.
“I slept with me heels higher’n me head,” in the morning announced Pat.
“’Tis a fine country where a man can’t find a level spot to stretch
his bones over.”
The next day the spotted colt was killed. Some of the men were growing
discouraged. After supper Captain Clark, lean but ruddy, his eyes tired
but steady, made a speech, with Captain Lewis seconding him.
“We’re doing the best we can, men,” he said. “We’re bound to break our
way out into the lower country where there’ll be warmth and game and
friendly Indians. Why, it may be only a few miles ahead! We can’t turn
back. Behind us would be only disgrace. Before is glory, and the honor
of the flag. To-morrow I’m to scout for a better game country than we
are finding. The level grassy plains are the places for game; and I’ll
send you back word, and as like as not some fat meat, too.”
“Hooray,” agreed the men, feebly.
“Our hearts be strong but our stomicks be weak,” sighed Pat.
“We’re nearly at the end of the colts,” added Alec Willard. “I’d as
soon eat my moccasins as chaw old hoss.”
The next morning early Captain Clark, with Drouillard, Joe Fields,
Alec, John Colter, Hugh McNeal and George Shannon, the strongest of the
men, and good hunters all, rode ahead on picked horses to find, as they
expressed, “a level spot and game.”
Old Toby and his son continued to guide. They were doing the best they
could, too. But surely this Pierced Nose trail was long and difficult.
Now the only food left was some soup and bear-oil. Everybody was
feeling weak and miserable. But once the men started a cheer, for
they glimpsed, distant before, through a gap, a large broad valley or
plain――perhaps the end of the mountains and perhaps the country of the
Nez Percés or Pierced Noses. Then the mountains closed again and the
valley was swallowed up.
On the third day, about ten o’clock, another shout was given. To a tree
beside the trail (the trees were getting larger, showing that the trail
was leading downward), in a little draw was hanging the carcass of a
horse; and to it was pinned by a splinter a note from Captain Clark:
I am going on to some plains to the southwest.
Will find Indians and collect provisions for you.