CHAPTER XVI
THE BIRD-WOMAN GUIDE (1805-1806)
SACAGAWEA HELPS THE WHITE MEN
This is the story of one slight little Indian woman, aged sixteen, who opened the trail across the continent, for the march of the United States flag.
When in March, 1804, the United States took over that French Province of Louisiana which extended from the upper Mississippi River west to the Rocky Mountains, a multitude of Indians changed white fathers.
These Western Indians were much different from the Eastern Indians. They were long-hair Indians, and horse Indians, accustomed to the rough buffalo chase, and a wide range over vast treeless spaces.
To learn about them and their country, in May, 1804, there started up the Missouri River, by boats from St. Louis, the famed Government exploring party commanded by Captain Meriwether Lewis and Captain William Clark.
It was an army expedition: twenty-three enlisted men, a hunter, a squad of boatmen, Captain Clark's black servant York, and a squad of other soldiers for an escort part of the way. In all, forty-three, under the two captains.
Their orders were, to ascend the Missouri River to its head; and, if possible, to cross the mountains and travel westward still, to the Columbia River and its mouth at the Pacific Ocean of the Oregon country.
No white man knew what lay before them, for no white man ever had made the trip. The trail was a trail in the dark.