“Black Buffalo,” said Lewis, as best he might through his interpreter, “I heard you were a chief. You are not Black Buffalo, but some squaw! We are going to see if we can find Black Buffalo, the real chief. If he were here, he would accept our tobacco. The geese are flying down the river. Soon the snow will come. We cannot wait. See, I give you this tobacco on the prairie. Go and see if you can find Black Buffalo, the real chief!”
“Ha!” exclaimed the Teton leader, his dignity outraged. “You say I am not Black Buffalo—that I am not a chief. I will show you!”
He caught the twists of good black Virginia tobacco tossed to him, and cast the rope far from him upon the tawny flood of the Missouri. An instant later the oars had caught the water and Cruzatte had spread the bowsail of the barge. So they won through one more of the most dangerous of the tribes against whom they had been warned.
“A near thing, Merne!” said Will Clark after a time. “There is some mighty Hand that seems to guide us—is it not the truth?”
CHAPTER IV
THE CROSSROADS OF THE WEST
The geese were now indeed flying down the river, coming in long, dark lines out of the icy north. Sometimes the sky was overcast hours at a stretch. A new note came into the voice of the wind. The nights grew colder.