In the morning Captain Clark took Sergeant Pat and ten other men, and started over the mountains to explore beyond the Snake village, in hopes of finding a route by water. They were to send back a man to the Snake village, to meet Captain Lewis there and tell him what had been discovered.
Chief Ca-me-ah-wait and all his people except two men and two women started also for the village, with Sa-ca-ja-we-a and Chaboneau, to bring down horses, for Captain Lewis.
Everybody in the camp was put at work making pack-saddles from oar handles and pieces of boxes tied firmly with raw-hide! Out of sight of the Indians a hole was dug in which to cache more of the baggage, especially the specimens that had been collected.
Five horses were purchased, at six dollars each in trade; the canoes were sunk by rocks in the bottom of the river—and the Snakes promised not to disturb them, while the white men were away. On August 24 the march was begun for the village on the other slope of what are to-day the Bitter Root Mountains. The five horses were packed with the supplies; Sa-ca-ja-we-a and little Toussaint rode on a sixth horse that Chaboneau had bought.
Although this was August, the evenings and nights were so cold that the ink froze on the pens when the journals were being written. The village was reached in the late afternoon of August 26. John Colter was here, waiting. He brought word from Captain Clark that canoes would be of no use; the country ahead was fit for only horse and foot, as far as the captain had gone.
“We had an old Injun for guide who’d been living in another village further west,” related John. “He says we can’t go to the south’ard, for the land’s bare rocks and high mountains without game, and the horses’ hoofs’d be cut to pieces, and the Broken Moccasin Indians would kill us. ’Tisn’t the direction we want to go, anyhow. The Injuns we met said winter was due, with big snows, and soon the salmon would be leaving for lower country. So the captain decided to turn back and advise Captain Lewis that we’d better tackle another road he’d heard of from the guide, farther to the north, into the Tushepaw country on the big river. After we’d struck the big river, which like as not is the Columby, we could follow it down to the Pacific. Anyhow, the Tushepaws might know.”
Captain Lewis immediately began to bargain for twenty horses. The prices were being raised, so that soon a young horse cost a pistol, 100 balls, some powder and a knife.
Sergeant Pat arrived from Captain Clark’s camp below, to ask how matters were shaping.
“’Tis a hard road ahead, lads,” he confirmed. “Cruzatte will tell you that. Sure, wance he was almost lost, himself. I was sint up here to inquire about the prospect of hosses; but what I want to learn, myself, is: are we have the pleasure of the comp’ny of the little Bird-woman?”