“What will you do, along with us, Peter?”
“I work. I can talk sign language,” answered Peter, proudly.
“There’s something in that, Merne,” laughed Captain Clark. “Now with Dorion gone we’ll need an interpreter to help Drouillard. I fancy Peter knows almost as much as he does.”
“You’ve got a kind heart, Will,” replied Captain Lewis, his eyes softening. “But game’s plenty; we’ll have meat enough—and that’s the main question. All right, Peter. You can come as far as the Mandan village, anyway. And in the spring we’ll see.”
Whereupon Peter resolved that he would make himself useful, so that they would take him clear to the Pacific Ocean, which lay, according to Patrick Gass and the other men, many, many days’ travel, far beyond the western mountains.
V
BAD HEARTS
Work, work, work! Through this the month of September, 1804, the boats had been toiling on up the sluggish Missouri River, in the present State of South Dakota. With the rains, the winds, and the shallows, everybody, even the captains, was wet all the day, from hauling on the tow-ropes, in and out of the water.
The weather turned cold and raw. Shelters of deer hides were stretched over the two pirogues, and in the camps the men made themselves hide coats and leggins and moccasins. Patrick and old Cruzatte together fitted Peter with a buckskin suit that felt much better to him than his other, clumsy garments.