To the south and west and north were the mountains, those to the northward snowy, those to the southward more bare.
“An’ those are the wans we have to cross, I reckon,” sighed Patrick.
But the iron boat did not prove a success. After days of labor at dressing skins, both elk and buffalo, and stretching them over the frame, and cementing the seams with a mixture of beeswax, buffalo tallow and pounded charcoal, she leaked so that she had to be taken apart again and buried.
So Captain Clark, with most of the men, went out in search of trees from which canoes might be hollowed; and it was the middle of July before the expedition was fairly on its way again.
“Faith, we’ll be lucky if we reach the Paycific before winter,” remarked Sergeant Pat.
The river led southwest, toward the mountains. It grew swifter and shallower, and was frequently broken by islands. There were days of arduous wading, hauling, struggling, sometimes in rain and hail, and again in the hot sun with the thermometer at eighty and above.
The mosquitoes and flies bothered. The shores grew rougher, and higher, until at one spot the river boiled down, 150 paces wide, through a gap in solid cliffs 1200 feet high, black granite below, creamy yellow above. The channel was too deep for wading, or for the poles; and the boats were rowed, a few inches at a time, with the oars. This gap was named the Gate of the Mountains.
“I told you we’d find a gate,” reminded Pat, to Peter. “Now what’s inside, an’ where be the Snakes?”
For this was the Sho-sho-ne country, at last. The Sho-sho-nes were horse Indians. The captains counted on getting horses from them, and leaving the canoes. The firing of guns was limited, lest the Snakes should hear and be alarmed. Indian trails and abandoned camps were passed. The snowy range of the Shining Mountains was nearer, in the west. Captain Clark took Chaboneau and Joe Fields and York and John Potts, and set out ahead, by land, to find some Indians, if possible.
Sa-ca-ja-we-a began to remark familiar places, where she and other Sho-sho-ne women had been, before she was captured by the Minnetarees. Now little flags were hoisted on the canoes, to tell the Sho-sho-nes that the United States soldiers were coming in peace.