When the canoes were loaded upon the carts, the horses pulled very well, for buffalo-horses; but, just as a year ago, the rain and the mud interfered, the carts broke; besides, Pat was taken ill; so that five days were required for carrying canoes and baggage around the series of falls, to the old Portage Creek camp at the lower end.
One canoe was worthless, but the others were placed in the water; so was the white pirogue; the blunderbuss or swivel cannon was unearthed and mounted in its bows, as before.
“Faith, we’re gettin’ all our plunder together, wance ag’in,” congratulated Pat. “An’ there’s more of it, an’ the red pirogue, remember, at the mouth o’ the Maria’s, where we’re to meet Cap’n Lewis. Do you be takin’ the canoes down, Ordway, an’ Peter an’ I’ll ride by land with the hosses.”
The mouth of the Maria’s was not far—fifty miles by river, according to Pat’s journal, written on the way up, but less by land. The Maria’s, as Peter recalled, was the fork of the Missouri where camp had been made while the captains debated which route led to the Columbia. Captain Lewis had explored up the Maria’s and he and Captain Clark had decided that the other fork was the right channel—the “true” Missouri.
Peter and Pat covered thirty miles this first day. They saw thousands of buffalo, and a pack of wolves chasing an antelope. Pat shot an antelope, with his rifle, and Peter killed a buffalo with his arrows; the next morning they killed, together, six antelope and seven buffalo—which was all the meat that they could pack, although, as declared Pat, they might have killed a hundred.
Shortly after noon they came in sight of the mouth of the Maria’s. Sergeant Ordway’s party with the canoes already were there, and ashore.
“An’ ain’t that Drouillard, too?” exclaimed Pat. “Yis! An’ the cap’n, b’gorry! An’ the two Fieldses! Somethin’ must have fetched ’em back in a hurry. ’Tis only July 28; they’re a week ahead o’ time.”
He quickened his horse into a trot, and leading each a horse packed high with meat and hides, he and Peter hastened forward to learn the news.