It was the middle of June before they made the effort to pass the Bitter Roots. Sixty horses they had now, with abundance of jerked horse meat, and a half-dozen Nez Percés guides. By the third of July—just three years from the date of the Louisiana Purchase as it was made known at Mr. Jefferson’s simplicity dinner—they were across the Bitter Roots once more, in the pleasant valleys of the eastern slope.
“That way,” said Sacajawea, pointing, “big falls!”
She meant the short cut across the string of the bow, which would lead over the Continental Divide direct to the Great Falls of the Missouri. Both the leaders had pondered over this short cut, which the Nez Percés knew well.
“We must part, Will,” said Meriwether Lewis. “It is our duty to learn all we can of this wonderful country. I will take the Indian trail straight across. Do you go on down the way we came. Pick up our caches above the three forks of the Missouri, and then cross over the mountains to the Yellowstone. Make boats there, and come on down to the mouth of that river. You should precede me there, perhaps, by some days. Wait then until I come.”
With little more ado these self-reliant men parted in the middle of the vast mountain wilderness. They planned a later junction of their two parties at the mouth of a river which then was less known than the Columbia had been, through a pass which none of them had ever seen.
Lewis had with him nine men, among them Sergeant Gass, the two Fields boys, Drouillard and Cruzatte, the voyageurs. Sacajawea, in spite of her protest, remained with the Clark party, where her wonderful knowledge of the country again proved invaluable. This band advanced directly to the southward by easy and pleasant daily stages.
“That way short path over mountains,” said Sacajawea at length, at one point of their journey.
She pointed out the Big Hole Trail and what was later known as Clark’s Pass over the Continental Divide. They came to a new country, a beautiful valley where the grass was good; but Sacajawea still pointed onward.
“That way,” said she, “find boat, find cache!”