“But instead, we’re four thousand miles from old ‘Pennsylvany,’ Pat, and in a country where even the dogs are so hungry they eat your moccasins while you sleep,” retorted George Shannon. “The pesky brutes stole my best pair last night.”
This was the day of September 5. Ca-me-ah-wait and Toby and John Colter and Pat had spoken truly when they had predicted a tough trip. The region west from the Sho-sho-ne village proved impassable. Old Toby had led northward, by hard trail up and down. The two captains rode in the advance; the hunters scouted for game but found little; York’s big feet had failed him and he needs must ride until well; Sa-ca-ja-we-a, of course, rode, carrying on her back baby Toussaint; everybody else trudged afoot, each man leading two pack-horses.
The horses soon were worn out by scrambling amidst rain and snow, and falling on the sharp rocks.
What with hauling and shoving and chasing them, the men had decided that boats were easier, after all.
The route had crossed the crooked range, to the east side again, and here had struck a Tushepaw Indian camp of thirty-three lodges. Now the company were lying around, waiting and resting, while the captains traded for more horses.
“I can not onderstan’ one word,” complained Chaboneau. “Neider can Sa-ca-ja-we-a.”
Old Toby himself scarcely was able to interpret for the captains. The language was a curious mixture of grunts and cries. Nevertheless, a kind and hospitable people were these light-skinned Oo-tla-shoots, of the great Tushepaw or Flat-head nation. They were rich in horses, and generous with their roots and berries; and fearing that these strange white men, who rode without blankets, had been robbed, they threw about their guests’ shoulders handsome bleached buffalo robes.
These Oo-tla-shoots, who were on their way eastward to hunt the buffalo, signed that the best trail for the big water beyond the mountains was the Pierced Nose trail, northward still. If the white men crossed the mountains by that trail, they would come to a swift river that joined the Big River, down which were falls and a big water where lived other white men.
Old Toby, winking his eyes violently, said that he knew. He once had been upon that trail of the Pierced Noses, by which they hunted the buffalo. His four sons had left him, several days back; but another son had appeared, and he asserted that they two would guide the white chiefs, by the Pierced Nose trail onward from the No-Salmon River, and so to the stinking lake under the setting sun.