On the morning of the twelfth the white pirogue and the six canoes headed up the south fork, before a fair wind.
“We’re off,” exulted Sergeant Pat.
Everybody was in high spirits—everybody except Chaboneau and Sa-ca-ja-we-a.
“Sa-ca-ja-we-a she seeck,” announced Chaboneau. “I do not know what is matter. Mebbe stomick, or mebbe she ketch col’ in all dat rain.”
Yes, the little sixteen-year-old Bird-woman was feeling very ill. Now for almost a thousand miles she had carried baby Toussaint, had tended the lodge fire and done other Indian woman work; sometimes she had been wet, frequently cold and foot-sore, but she never had complained or lagged.
“You must let her rest, Chaboneau,” said Captain Clark, that evening at camp. “Keep her in bed. York, you look after her. Never mind me. Make her some broth. Peter, you help her with little Toussaint. Hold him, if she’ll let you.”
So Peter took charge of baby Toussaint—who really was a very good baby. He rarely cried, and even rarely smiled. He lay in his swathings of skins and stared with his bright black eyes.
The day had been an easy one for nobody. The river soon had run swiftly; it was broken with many sand-bars and gravel-bars, and by boulders upon which several times the canoes almost capsized.
The next day’s voyage was as bad, and worse. Snow mountains appeared on the south as well as at the west. There were numerous islands, more shoals and boulders, and the tow-lines were used. Sa-ca-ja-we-a, lying on a couch of skins in the white pirogue, had not improved. She moaned, and tossed, and babbled strange words. Peter and York watched over her and the baby, although occasionally York had to tumble out and haul on the tow-line.
“Pshaw!” muttered Captain Clark, that night, gazing, non-plussed, at Sa-ca-ja-we-a, who did not recognize him. “We mustn’t lose our little Bird-woman. She’s to be our guide to her own people, so that they will show us the way across the mountains. In fact, the fate of the expedition may depend upon her.”