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 Dick!" exclaimed Jesse, spreading out
his map on top of one of the kyacks in which Nigger 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, Shields, 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 Pass, which ought to be called the Lewis Pass, 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 pass, 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 Shields, 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' Shields 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 pass. 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
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, 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 Dick; 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.
"But now, when Sacagawea 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 entree 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:
"'August 20th Tuesday 1805 'So-So-ne' the Snake Indians Set out at
half past 6 oClock and proceeded on (met many parties of Indians)
thro' a hilley Countrey to the Camp of the Indians on a branch of
the Columbia River, before we entered this Camp a Serimonious hault
was requested by the Chief and I smoked with all that Came around,
for Several pipes, we then proceeded on to the Camp & I was
introduced into the only Lodge they had which was pitched in the
Center for my party all the other Lodges made of bushes, after a
fiew Indian Seremonies I informed the Indians (of) the object of
our journey our good intentions toward them my Consirn for their
distressed Situation, what we had done for them in makeing a piece
with the Minitarras Mandans Rickara &c. for them. and requested
them all to take over their horses & assist Capt Lewis across &c.
also informing them the o(b)ject of my journey down the river, and
requested a guide to accompany me, all of which was repeited by the
Chief to the whole village.
"'Those pore people Could only raise a Sammon & a little dried
Choke Cherries for us half the men of the tribe with the Chief
turned out to hunt the antilopes, at 3 oClock after giveing a fiew
Small articles as presents I set out accompanied by an old man as
a Guide I endevered to procure as much information from thos people
as possible without much Suckcess they being but little acquainted
or effecting to be So. I left one man to purchase a horse and
overtake me and proceeded on thro a wide rich bottom on a beaten
Roade 8 miles Crossed the river and encamped on a Small run, this
evening passed a number of old lodges, and met a number of men
women children & horses, met a man who appeared of Some
Consideration who turned back with us, we halted a woman & gave us
3 Small Sammon, this man continued with me all night and partook of
what I had which was a little Pork verry Salt. Those Indians are
verry attentive to Strangers &c. I left our interpreter & his woman
to accompany the Indians to Capt Lewis to-morrow the Day they
informed me they would Set out I killed a Pheasent at the Indian
Camp larger than a dungal (dunghill) fowl with f(l)eshey
protubrances about the head like a turkey. Frost last night.'
"Clark got more and more discouraging news about getting down the Lemhi
River, on which they were camped, and the big river below--the Salmon
River. But with the old man for guide, he went about seventy miles, into
the gorge of the Salmon River, before he would quit. But he found that
no man could get down that torrent, with either boat or pack train. He
gave it up. They were nearly starved when they got back at the Indian
camp, where Lewis and the other men were trading. Sacagawea had kept all
her people from going on east to the buffalo country, though now they
none of them had anything to eat but a few berries and choke cherries.
If the Indians had left, or if they had been missed by the party, the
expedition would have ended there. The Indian girl once more had saved
the Northwest for America, very likely.
"Now the old Indian guide said he knew a way across, away to the north.
They hired him as guide. They traded for twenty-nine horses, and at last
packed them and set out for the hardest part of their journey and the
riskiest, though they did not know that then. On August 30th they set
out. At the same time Cameahwait and his band set off east, after their
fall hunt.
"That was the last that Sacagawea ever saw of her brother or her girl
friend. She went on with her white husband, into strange tribes--nothing
further for her to look forward to now, for she was leaving home for
another thousand miles, in the opposite direction.
"And that ended the long, hard, risky time the company of Volunteers for
Discovery of the Northwest had in crossing the Continental Divide. We
lie at the foot of their pass. Yonder they headed out for the setting
sun!"
"Let's go on after them, Uncle Dick!" exclaimed Jesse. "We've got a good
outfit, and we're not afraid!"
"I've been expecting that," rejoined their leader. "I was afraid you'd
want to go through! But we can't do it, fellows, not this year at least.
There's the school term we've got to think of. We're nearly three
thousand miles from St. Louis. That means we'll have to choose between
two or three weeks of the hardest kind of mountain work and back out
when we've got nowhere, and taking a fast and simple trip to the true
head of the Missouri. Which would you rather do?"
"We don't like to turn back," said Rob.
"Well, it wouldn't be turning back, really. It would be going to the
real head of the Missouri--and neither Lewis nor Clark ever did that, or
very many other men." Billy spoke quietly.
"But don't think," he added, "that I'm not game to go on into the Bitter
Roots, if you say so. I'm promising you she's rough, up in there. The
trail they took was a fright, and I don't see how they made it. It ran
to where this range angles into the corner of the Bitter Roots, and
crossed there. They crossed another pass, too, and that makes three
passes, from here. They got here July 10th, and three days later at last
they hit the Lolo Creek trail, over the Lolo Pass--the way old Chief
Joseph came east when he went on the war trail; he fought Gibbon in the
battle of the Big Hole, above here."
Rob sighed. "Well, it only took Lewis and Clark a couple of months to
get through. But still, we've only got a couple of weeks."
"What do you say, John? Shall we go south to the head with Billy?" Uncle
Dick did not decide it alone.
"Vote yes, in the circumstances," said John. "Hate to quit her, though!"
"You, Jess?"
"Oh, all right, I'll haul off if the rest do. We'll get to fish some,
won't we?"
"All you want. The best trout and grayling fishing there is left
anywhere."
"It's a vote, Uncle Dick!" said Rob. "This is our head camp on this leg
of the trip."
"I think that's wise," said Uncle Dick.
"But before we leave here I want you to have a last look at the map."
They spread it open in the firelight.
"This point is where Clark came and got the canoes the next year, 1806.
They came back over the Lolo, but took a short cut, east of this
mountain range, forty miles east of the other trail. They came over the
Gibbon Pass--which ought to be called Clark's Pass and isn't--and headed
southeast, the Indian girl being of use again now. They came down
Grasshopper Creek, walking over millions of dollars of gold gravel, and
found their canoes, not over a few hundred yards from where we sit, like
enough.
"Then Clark and his men got in the boats and headed home. Sacagawea
showed them the trail up the Gallatin, over the Bozeman Pass, to the
Yellowstone. And they went down that to its mouth.
"And now, one last touch to show what nerve those captains really had.
Either could cut loose.
"Near what is now Missoula, on the Bitter Root--which Lewis called
Clark's Fork, after Clark, just as Clark named his Salmon River
tributary after Lewis--Lewis took ten men and headed across lots for
the Great Falls and then for the head of the Marias River!
"Surely, they began to scatter. Clark had left twenty men, the Indian
girl and her baby, and they had fifty horses. At this place here, where
we are in camp, Clark split his party again, some going down in the
boats, some on horseback, but all traveling free and happy. They got
here July 10th, and three days later were at the Three Forks, both
parties, only one hour apart! They certainly had good luck in getting
together.
"On that same day, Sergeant Ordway took six boats and nine men and
started down the Missouri to meet Lewis at the Great Falls, or the mouth
of the Marias. They made it down all right, and that is all we can say,
for no record exists of that run downstream.
"Now, get all this straight in your heads and see how they had
scattered, in that wild, unknown country, part in boats, part on
shore--the riskiest way to travel. All the sergeants are captains now.
We have four different companies.
"Gass is at the Great Falls, where Lewis split his party. Ordway is on
his way down the river from the Three Forks to the Falls. Clark is with
the horses now, headed east for the Yellowstone--which not a soul in
that party knew a thing about, except the Indian girl, who insisted they
would come out on the Yellowstone. And on that river the Clark party
divided once more, part going in boats and part on horseback!
"Now figure five parties out of thirty-one men. Look at your map,
remembering that the two land parties were in country they had never
seen before. Yet they plan to meet at the mouth of the Yellowstone, over
twelve hundred miles from where we are sitting here! That's traveling!
That's exploring! And their story of it all is as plain and simple and
modest as though children had done it. There's nothing like it in all
the world."
He ceased to speak. The little circle fell silent.
"Go on, go on, Uncle Dick!" urged Jess. "You've not allowed us to read
ahead that far. You said you'd rather we wouldn't. Tell us, now."
"No. Fold up your maps and close your journals for a while, here at our
last camp on the greatest trail a river ever laid.
"We're going fishing now, fellows--to-morrow we start east, gaining two
years on Lewis and Clark. When we get down near the Yellowstone and
Great Falls country again, going east ourselves, we'll just finish up
the story of the map till we reach the Mandans--which is where we left
our own good ship _Adventurer_.
"To-morrow we head south, the other way. 'This story is to be continued
in our next,' as the story papers say.
"Good night. Keep all this in your heads. It is a great story of great
men in a great valley, doing the first exploring of the greatest country
in the world--the land that is drained by the Missouri and its streams!
"Good luck, old tops!" he added, as he rose and stepped to the edge of
the circle of light, waving his hand to the Divide above them. He stood
looking toward the west.
"Whom are you speaking to, Uncle Dick?" asked John, as he heard no
answer.
"I was just speaking to my friends, Captain Meriwether Lewis and Captain
William Clark. Didn't you see them pass our camp just now?"