“Ah hi e, ah hi e!” said the Indians; meaning: “Glad to see you.”
The chief was Ca-me-ah-wait. In the village the men were given salmon trout to eat, so they knew that they were on the Pacific side of the mountains. The village was friendly, but when the captain asked the Indians to return with him to the east side and meet the other white chief and men, they were afraid again—said the white men might be spies for the Minnetarees. Finally Ca-me-ah-wait was persuaded, and started, with eight warriors.
The women wept and wailed, but after a few hours the village followed.
“Well, our troubles began again,” continued Hugh. “To get those Snakes down here was like haulin’ the barge up-stream in some of those rapids. They turned so suspicious that we traded clothes with ’em. We gave ’em our flag to carry. The cap’n had told ’em that the other white chief was to be found at the forks—but when we sighted the forks, the boats weren’t to be seen, and that made matters worse. Where was the other white chief? Of course, we’d calkilated you fellows might be slow, ’cause of the rapids, but we’d hoped.
“Now we gave over our guns, and the cap’n told the chief to have us shot if there was any ambush. We were terrible afraid the whole pack of Injuns’d skip and leave us stranded without hosses, or guns either. The cap’n sent Drouillard and an Injun down to the forks, to get a note that had been stuck on a pole there, for Captain Clark. They brought back the note, and the cap’n pretended it was a note put there by the other white chief, sayin’ he was comin’, but had been delayed. The cap’n wrote another note, by light of a brush fire, telling Captain Clark to hurry. Drouillard and an Injun were to take it down river in the morning.
“That night the Snakes hid out, all ’round us, in the brush, for fear of a trap, while the chief and four or five warriors bunked close beside us. Our scalps felt mighty loose on our heads—and the mosquitoes were powerful bad, too, so we none of us slept much. The cap’n was pretty near crazy. It was touch-and-go, how things’d turn out. The Snakes were liable to skeedaddle, the whole pack of ’em, and carry us off with ’em. The only reason they were stayin’ now, was that Drouillard had told ’em we had one of their women in the main party, and a big black medicine man.”
“Hoo! Dat am me,” asserted York, proudly. “Dis eckspedishun can’t get ’long wiffout Yawk.”
“Next mornin’ we were on the anxious seat. The fate of the expedition hung on whether you fellows arrived pretty soon at those forks and proved that the cap’n had spoken truth. The chief sent out a lot of scouts; and Drouillard and one Injun started early with the note, to find you. They hadn’t been gone more than two hours by sun, when in came a scout at a gallop, makin’ signs. He said he’d seen men like us, with skin color of ashes, travelin’ up-river in boats, and they weren’t far away. Hooray!”
“Hooray!” cheered the listeners.