THE MOUNTAINS
When William Clark returned from his three days' scouting trip, his
forehead was furrowed with anxiety. His men were silent as they filed
into camp and cast down their knapsacks.
"It's no use, Merne," said Clark, "we are in a pocket here. The other
two forks, which we called the Madison and the Gallatin, both come
from the southeast, entirely out of our course. The divide seems to
face around south of us and bend up again on the west. Who knows the
way across? Our river valley is gone. The only sure way seems
back--downstream."
"What do you mean?" demanded Meriwether Lewis quietly.
"I scarce know. I am worn out, Merne. My men have been driven hard."
"And why not?"
His companion remained silent under the apparent rebuke.
"You don't mean that we should return?" Lewis went on.
"Why not, Merne?" said William Clark, sighing.
"Our men are exhausted. There are other years than this."
Meriwether Lewis turned upon his friend with the one flash of wrath
which ever was known between them.
"Good Heavens, Captain Clark," said he, "there is _not_ any other year
than this! There is not any other month, or week, or day but this! It
is not for you or me to hesitate--within the hour I shall go on. We'll
cross over, or we'll leave the bones of every man of the expedition
here--this year--now!"
Clark's florid face flushed under the sting of his comrade's words;
but his response was manful and just.
"You are right," said he at length. "Forgive me if for a moment--just
a moment--I seemed to question the possibility of going forward. Give
me a night to sleep. As I said, I am worn out. If I ever see Mr.
Jefferson again, I shall tell him that all the credit for this
expedition rests with you. I shall say that once I wavered, and that I
had no cause. You do not waver--yet I know what excuse you would have
for it."
"You are only weary, Will. It is my turn now," said Meriwether Lewis;
and he never told his friend of this last letter.
A moment later he had called one of his men.
"McNeal," said he, "get Reuben Fields, Whitehouse, and Goodrich. Make
light packs. We are going into the mountains!"
The four men shortly appeared, but they were silent, morose, moody.
Those who were to remain in the camp shared their silence. Sacajawea
alone smiled as they departed.
"That way!" said she, pointing; and she knew that her chief would find
the path.
May we not wonder, in these later days, if any of us, who reap so
carelessly and so selfishly where others have plowed and sown, reflect
as we should upon the first cost of what we call our own? The fifteen
million dollars paid for the vast empire which these men were
exploring--that was little--that was naught. But ah, the cost in blood
and toil and weariness, in love and loyalty and faith, in daring and
suffering and heartbreak of those who went ahead! It was a few brave
leaders who furnished the stark, unflinching courage for us all.
Sergeant Ordway, with Pryor and Gass, met in one of the many little
ominous groups that now began to form among the men in camp. Captain
Clark was sleeping, exhausted.
"It stands to reason," said Ordway, usually so silent, "that the way
across the range is up one valley to the divide and down the next
creek on the opposite side. That is the way we crossed the
Alleghanies."
Pryor nodded his head.
"Sure," said he, "and all the game-trails break off to the south and
southwest. Follow the elk!"
"Is it so?" exclaimed Patrick Gass. "You think it aisy to find a way
across yonder range? And how d'ye know jist how the Alleghanies was
crossed first? Did they make it the first toime they thried? Things is
aisy enough after they've been done _wance_--but it's the first toime
that counts!"
"There is no other way, Pat," argued Ordway. "'Tis the rivers that
make passes in any mountain range."
"Which is the roight river, then?" rejoined Gass. "We're lookin' for
wan that mebbe is nowhere near here. S'pose we go to the top yonder
and take a creek down, and s'pose that creek don't run the roight way
at all, but comes out a thousand miles to the southwest--where are you
then, I'd like to know? The throuble with us is we're the first wans
to cross here, and not comin' along after some one else has done the
thrick for us."
Pryor was willing to argue further.
"All the Injuns have said the big river was over there somewhere."
"'Somewhere'!" exclaimed Patrick Gass. "'Somewhere' is a mighty long
ways when we're lost and hungry!"
"Which is just what we are now," rejoined Pryor. "The sooner we start
back the quicker we'll be out of this."
"Pryor!" The square face of the Irishman hardened at once. "Listen to
me. Ye're my bunkmate and friend, but I warn ye not to say that agin!
If ye said it where he could hear ye--that man ahead--do you know what
he would do to you?"
"I ain't particular. 'Tis time we took this thing into our own hands."
"It's where we're takin' it _now_, Pryor!" said Gass ominously. "A
coort martial has set for less than that ye've said!"
"Mebbe you couldn't call one--I don't know."
"Mebbe we couldn't, eh? I mind me of a little settlement I had with
that man wance--no coort martial at all--me not enlisted at the toime,
and not responsible under the arthicles of war. I said to his face I
was of the belief I could lick him. I said it kindly, and meant no
harm, because at the time it seemed to me I could, and 'twould be a
pleasure to me. But boys, he hit me wan time, and when I came to I was
careless whether it was the arthicles of war or not had hit me. Listen
to me now, Pryor--and you, too, Ordway--a man like that is liable to
have judgment in his head as well as a punch in his arm. We're safer
to folly him than to folly ourselves. Moreover, I want you to say to
your men that we will not have thim foregatherin' around and talkin'
any disrespect to their shuperiors. If we're in a bad place, let us
fight our ways out. Let's not turn back until we are forced. I never
did loike any rooster in the ring that would either squawk or run
away. That man yonder, on ahead, naded mighty little persuadin' to
fight. I'm with him!"
"Well, maybe you are right, Pat," said Ordway after a time. And so the
mutiny once more halted.
The tide changed quickly when it began to set the other way. Lewis led
an advance party across the range. One day, deep in the mountains, he
was sweeping the country with his spyglass, as was his custom. He gave
a sudden exclamation.
"What is it, Captain?" asked Hugh McNeal. "Some game?"
"No, a man--an Indian! Riding a good horse, too--that means he has
more horses somewhere. Come, we will call to him!"
The wild rider, however, had nothing but suspicion for the newcomers.
Staring at them, he wheeled at length and was away at top speed. Once
more they were alone, and none the better off.
"His people are that way," said Lewis. "Come!"
But all that day passed, and that night, and still they found none of
the natives. But they began to see signs of Indians now, fresh tracks,
hoofprints of many horses. And thus finally they came upon two Indian
women and a child, whom the white men surprised before they were able
to escape. Lewis took up the child, and showed the mother that he was
a friend.
"These are Shoshones," said he to his men. "I can speak with them--I
have learned some of their tongue from Sacajawea. These are her
people. We are safe!"
Sixty warriors met them, all mounted, all gorgeously clad. Again the
great peace pipe, again the spread blanket inviting the council. The
Shoshones showed no signs of hostility--the few words of their tongue
which Lewis was able to speak gave them assurance.
"McNeal," said Lewis, "go back now across the range, and tell Captain
Clark to bring up the men."
William Clark, given one night's sleep, was his energetic self again,
and not in mind to lie in camp. He had already ordered camp broken,
more of the heavier articles cached, the canoes concealed here and
there along the stream and had pushed on after Lewis. He met McNeal
coming down, bearing the tidings. Sacajawea ran on ahead in glee.
"My people! My people!" she cried.
They were indeed safe now. Sacajawea found her brother, the chief of
this band of Shoshones, and was made welcome. She found many friends
of her girlhood, who had long mourned her as dead. The girls and
younger women laughed and wept in turn as they welcomed her and her
baby. She was a great person. Never had such news as this come among
the Shoshones.[5]
[Footnote 5: Cam-e-ah-wit was the name of Sacajawea's brother, the
Shoshone chief. The country where Lewis met him is remote from any
large city today. Pass through the Gate of the Mountains, not far from
Helena, Montana, and ascend the upper valley of the Missouri, as it
sweeps west of what is now the Yellowstone Park, and one may follow
with a certain degree of comfort the trail of the early explorers. If
one should then follow the Jefferson Fork of the great river up to its
last narrowing, one would reach the country of Cam-e-ah-wit. Here is
the crest of the Continental Divide, where it sweeps up from the
south, after walling in, as if in a vast cup, the three main sources
of the great river. Much of that valley country is in fertile farms
today. Lewis and Clark passed within twelve miles of Alder Gulch,
which wrote roaring history in the early sixties--the wild placer days
of gold-mining in Montana.
As for Sacajawea, she has a monument--a very poor and inadequate
one--in the city of Portland, Oregon. The crest of the Great Divide,
where she met her brother, would have been a better place. It was
here, in effect, that she ended that extraordinary guidance--some call
it nothing less than providential--which brought the white men through
in safety.
Trace this Indian girl's birth and childhood, here among the
Shoshones, who had fled to the mountains to escape the guns of the
Blackfeet. Recall her capture here by the Minnetarees from the Dakota
country. Picture her long journey thence to the east, on foot, by
horse, in bull-hide canoes, many hundreds of miles, to the Mandan
villages. It is something of a journey, even now. Reverse that
journey, go against the swift current of the waters, beyond the Great
Falls, past Helena, west of the Yellowstone Park, and up to the
Continental Divide, where she met her brother. You will find that that
is still more of a journey, even today, with roads, and towns, and
maps to guide you. Meriwether Lewis could not have made it without
her.
While he was studying the courses of the stars, at Philadelphia,
preparing to lead his expedition, Sacajawea was learning the story of
nature also; and she was waiting to guide the white men when they
reached the Mandan villages. Who guided her in such unbelievably
strange fashion? The Indians sometimes made long journeys, their war
parties traveled far, and their captives also; but in all the history
of the tribes there is no record of a journey made by any Indian woman
equal to that of Sacajawea. Why did she make it? What hand pointed out
the way for her?
A statue to her? She should have a thousand memorials along the old
trail! Her name should be known familiarly by every school child in
America!]
All were now content to lie for a few days at the Shoshone village. A
brisk trade in Indian horses now sprang up--they would be footmen no
more.
"Which way, Sacajawea?" Meriwether Lewis once more asked the Indian
girl.
But now she only shook her head.
"Not know," said she. "These my people. They say big river that way.
Not know which way."
"Now, Merne," said William Clark, "it's my turn again. We have got to
learn the best way out from these mountains. If there is a big river
below, some of these valleys must run down to it. Their waters
probably flow to the Columbia. The Indians talk of salmon and of
white men--they have heard of goods which must have been made by white
men. We are in touch with the Pacific here. I'll get a guide and
explore off to the southwest. It looks better there."
"No good--no good!" insisted Sacajawea. "That way no good. My brother
say go that way."
She pointed to the north, and insisted that the party should go in
that direction.
For a hundred miles Clark scouted down the headwaters of the Salmon
River, and at last turned back, to report that neither horse nor boat
ever could get through. At the Shoshone village, uneasy, the men were
waiting for him.
"That way!" said Sacajawea, still pointing north.
The Indian guide, who had served Clark unwillingly, at length admitted
that there was a trail leading across the mountains far up to the
northward.
"We will go north," said Lewis.
They cached under the ashes of their camp fire such remaining articles
as they could leave behind them. They had now a band of fifty horses.
Partly mounted, mostly on foot, their half wild horses burdened, they
set out once more under the guidance of an old Shoshone, who said he
knew the way.
Charbonneau wanted to remain with the Shoshones, and to keep with him
Sacajawea, his wife, so recently reunited to her people.
"No!" said Sacajawea. "I no go back--I go with the white chief to the
water that tastes salt!" And it was so ordered.
Their course lay along the eastern side of the lofty Bitter Root
Mountains. The going was rude enough, since no trail had ever been
here; but mile after mile, day after day, they stumbled through to
some point on ahead which none knew except the guide. They came on a
new tribe of Indians--Flatheads, who were as amazed and curious as the
Shoshones had been at the coming of these white men. They received the
explorers as friends--asked them to tarry, told them how dangerous it
was to go into the mountains.
But haste was the order of the day, and they left the Flatheads,
rejoicing that these also told of streams to the westward up which the
salmon came. They had heard of white men, too, to the west, many years
before.
Down the beautiful valley of the Bitter Root River, with splendid
mountains on either side, they pressed on, and on the ninth of
September, 1805, they stopped at the mouth of a stream coming down
from the heights to the west. Their old guide pointed up this valley.
"There is a trail," said he, "which comes across here. The Indians
come to reach the buffalo. On the farther side the water runs toward
the sunset."
They were at the eastern extremity of that ancient trail, later called
the Lolo Trail, known immemorially to the tribes on both sides of the
mountains. Laboriously, always pressing forward, they ascended the
eastern slopes of the great range, crossed the summit, found the clear
waters on the west side, and so came to the Kooskooskie or Clearwater
River, leading to the Snake. And always the natives marveled at these
white men, the first they ever had seen.
The old Indians still made maps on the sand for them, showing them how
they would come to the great river where the salmon came. They were
now among yet another people--the Nez Percés. With these also they
smoked and counciled, and learned that it would be easy for boats to
go all the way down to the great river which ran to the sea.
"We will leave our horses here," said Lewis. "We will take to the
boats once more."
So Gass and Bratton and Shields and all the other artisans fell to
fashioning dugouts from the tall pines and cedars, hewing and burning
and shaping, until at length they had transports for their scanty
store of goods. By the first week of October they were at the junction
of their river with the Snake. An old medicine man of the Nez Percés,
Twisted Hair, a man who also could make maps, had drawn them charts on
a white skin with a bit of charcoal. And on ahead, mounted runners of
the Indians rushed down to inform the tribes of the coming of these
strange people.
It was no longer an exploration, but a reception for them now. Bands
of red men, who welcomed them, had heard of white men coming up from
the sea. White men had once lived by the Tim-Tim water, on the great
river of the salmon--so they had been told; but never had any living
Indian heard of white men coming across the great mountains from the
sunrise.
"Will," said Lewis, "it is done--we are safe now! We shall be first
across to the Columbia. This--" he shook the Nez Percés' scrawled
hide--"is the map of a new world!"