THE PACIFIC OCEAN.
The party saw that they had come to the end of their journey.
They had come 4,134 miles from the mouth of the Missouri River.
It had taken them a year and a half to come.
But now they forgot their troubles.
They forgot the times they had been hungry.
They forgot their cut feet and their black and blue backs.
They forgot the bears and the snakes and the mosquitoes.
They saw the Pacific Ocean before them.
They sang because they were the first white men to make this journey.
They did not care for the troubles going back.
They knew that they could go home faster than they had come.
And they sang together, "The Ocean! The Ocean! O joy! O joy!"
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