“The ducks and geese and cranes were all through here—breeding grounds all along. That was molting time and they caught them in their hands. They killed beaver with the setting poles, and one day the men killed several otter with their tomahawks, though I doubt if they could eat otter. You see, as Clark’s notes say, the beaver were here in thousands. I suppose when so big a party went splashing up the creek the beaver and otter would get scared and swim out to the main stream, and there some one would hit them over the head as they swam by.”
“One thing,” said Jesse, “I don’t think they flogged any of the men any more. I don’t remember any since they left the Mandans.”
“Maybe they didn’t need it, and maybe their leaders had learned more. Ever since Lewis picked the right river at the Marias forks, I reckon the men relied on him more. Then, he’d be poking around shooting at the sun and stars with his astronomy machines, and that sort of made them respect him. Clark was a good sport. Lewis, I reckon, was harder to get along with. But they both must have been pretty white with the men. They tell of the hardships of the men, and how game and patient they are—not a whimper about quitting.”
“I know,” said Jesse, hauling out his worn copy of the Journal from his bed roll and turning the leaves; “they speak of the way the men felt:
“‘We Set out early (Wind N.E.) proceeded on passed Several large Islands and three Small ones, the river much more Sholey than below which obliges us to haul the Canoes over those Sholes which Suckceed each other at Short intervales emencely laborious; men much fatigued and weakened by being continually in the water drawing the Canoes over the Sholes, encamped on the Lard Side men complain verry much of the emence labour they are obliged to undergo & wish much to leave the river. I passify them, the weather Cool, and nothing to eate but venison, the hunters killed three Deer to day.’
“Anxious times about now, eh? But still, I don’t think the leaders ever once lost their nerve. Here’s what Lewis wrote about it:
“‘We begin to feel considerable anxiety with rispect to the Snake Indians. if we do not find them or some other nation who have horses I fear the successful issue of our voyage will be very doubtfull or at all events much more difficult in it’s accomplishment. we are now several hundred miles within the bosom of this wild and mountanous country, where game may rationally be expected shortly to become scarce and subsistence precarious without any information with rispect to the country not knowing how far these mountains continue, or wher to direct our course to pass them to advantage or intersept a navigable branch of the Columbia, or even were we on such an one the probability is that we should not find any timber within these mountains large enough for canoes if we judge from the portion of them through which we have passed. however I still hope for the best, and intend taking a tramp myself in a few days to find these yellow gentlemen if possible. my two principal consolations are that from our present position it is impossible that the S.W. fork can head with the waters of any other river but the Columbia, and that if any Indians can subsist in the form of a nation in these mountains with the means they have of acquiring food we can also subsist.’”
“No wonder the men wanted horses now—they knew the river’s end was near. And yet they were four hundred miles, right here, from the head of the Missouri!” Billy had his Journal pretty well in mind, so he went on frying bacon.
“Why, what you talking about, Billy? They made the Forks by July 27th, and by the end of August they were over the Divide, headed for the Columbia!”