"From the Sioux nation!"
Dorion, an old Frenchman on a Sioux raft, engaged to go back with Lewis and Clark to interpret for them the language of his wife's relations.
A thousand miles against the current! Now and then a southwest wind would fill out the big square-cut sail and send the heavy barge ploughing steadily up. Again, contrary winds kept them on the walking boards all day long, with heads bent low over the setting-pole.
Warm and warmer grew the days. Some of the men were sunstruck. The glitter of sun on the water inflamed their eyes. Some broke out with painful boils, and mosquitoes made night a torture.
Now and then they struck a sand-bar, and leaping into the water the voyageurs ran along shore with the cordelle on their shoulders, literally dragging the great boat into safety.
"Mon cher Captinne! de win' she blow lak' hurricane!" cried the voyageurs.
Down came the prairie gale, almost a tornado, snapping the timber on the river-banks, and lashing the water to waves that surged up, over, and into the boats. The sky bent black above them, the fierce wind howled, and the almost exhausted men strained every nerve to hold the rocking craft.
"I strong lak' moose, not 'fraid no t'ing," remarked Cruzatte, clambering back into the boat wet as a drowned kitten.
Hot and tired, June 26 they tied up at the mouth of Kansas River. "Eat somet'ing, tak' leetle drink also," said the voyageurs. On the present site of Kansas City they pitched their tents, and stretched their limbs from the weariness of canoe cramp.
"The most signs of game I iver saw," said Patrick Gass, wandering out with his gun to find a bear. "Imince Hurds of Deer," bears in the bottoms, beaver, turkeys, geese, and a "Grat nomber of Goslins," say the journals, but not an Indian.