Part 28 (2/2)
They stood at the junction of the Yellowstone with the Missouri, and faced one of the first of their great proble northward again; the grass was green
Three weeks ago the ice had run clear, and they had left their winter quarters a the Mandans
Five e; for five months they had labored to reach that place; for five months, orAs Meriwether Lewis said, ferong guesses could be afforded
Early in April the great barge,with it the proof of the success of the expedition
It bore s unknown to civilization A these were sixty specimens of plants, as many of minerals and earth, weapons of the Indians, exaetables which they raised, horns of the bighorn and the antelope--both animals then new to science--antlers of the deer and elk, stuffed specimens, dried skins, herbs, fruits, flowers; and with all these the broken story of a new geography--the greatest story ever sent out for publication by any reat barge had started down the river, the two pirogues which had coouts laboriously fabricated during the winter months, had started up the river, inal party, there had coirl Sacajaith her little baby, born that winter at the Mandan fortress Sacajawea now had her place in the camp; she and her infant were the pets of all She sat in the sunlight, her baby in her lap, by her side an Indian dog, a hich Lewis had found abandoned in an Indian encampment, and which had attached itself to him
Sacajawea smiled as the tall form of the captain came toward her She had already learned soue, he some of hers
”Which way, Sacajawea?” asked Meriwether Lewis ”What river is this which goes on to the left?”
”Hiood!
_Hiht-hand streaain, to the Indian girl: ”Do you reorously and san to sketch ahow the Yellowstone flowed from the south--how, far on ahead, its upper course bent toward the Missouri, with a march of not more than a day between the two The maps of this neorld that first cas made with a pointed stick upon the earth, or with a coal on a whitened hide
”She knows, Will!” said Lewis ”See, this place she marks near the mountain summit, where the two strea!”
”I'm sure I'd rather trust her map than this one, here, of old Jonathan Carver,” answered Clark, the reat rivers head about where we are now Henorth to Hudson Bay, but he has the St Lawrence rising near here, too--and it must be fifteen hundred or two thousand miles off to the east! The Mississippi, too, he thinks heads about here, at the on River, which I presume is the Columbia 'Tis all very simple, on Carver's maps, but perhaps not quite so easy, if we follow that of Sacajawea This country is wider than any of us ever dreareater, and more beautiful in every way,” assented his coazed about the curves between bold and sculptured bluffs, areen Above, on the prairies, lay a carpet of the shy wild rose, most beautiful of the prairie blosso forth their clai
On the plains fed the buffalo, far as the eye could reach Antelope, deer, the shy bighorn, all thesethe beaches It was the wilderness, and it was theirs--they owned it all!
Thus far they had seen no sign of any hu, red or white, all that su, lay waiting for occupancy There was no map of it--none save that written on the soil now and then by an Indian girl sixteen years of age
They plodded on now, taking the right-hand strea onward a little every day, between the high banks of the swift river that careat mountains April passed, and May
”Soon we see the mountains!” insisted Sacajawea
And at last, two months out from the Mandans, Lewis looked ard from a little eminence and saw a low, broken line, white in spots, not to be confused with the lesser eminences of the near by landscape
”It is the mountains!” he exclaimed ”There lie the Stonies They do exist! We shall surely reach thedistance to the ard; and yet other questions were to be settled ere they ht be reached
Within a week they ca river ca down from the north, of color and depth much similar to that of the Missouri they had known On the left ran a less turbulent and clearer streaht wan, _Capitaine_,” said Cruzatte, hireed with him The leaders recalled that the Mandans had said that the Missouri after a tirew clear in color, and that it would lead to the mountains Which, noas the Missouri?