"The Beaver Head! The Beaver Head!"
Sacajawea pointed to a steep, rocky cliff shaped like a beaver's head, one hundred and fifty feet above the water, an Indian landmark from time immemorial.
"This is not far from the summer retreat of my countrymen. We shall meet them soon, on a river beyond the mountains running to the west."
"We must meet those Indians," said Lewis, "it is our only hope for horses to cross the mountains."
Lewis and Clark camped August 7, 1805, at Beaverhead Rock. There, fifty-seven years later, chased by bears, robbed by Indians, unsheltered, unshod, and almost starving, the gold hunter stumbled upon the auriferous bed of an ancient river that made Montana. Gold was discovered at Alder Gulch in 1863, ten miles south of Beaverhead Rock, and the next year mining began in the streets of the present city of Helena. The pick and the shovel in the miner's hand became the lamp and the ring in the grasp of Aladdin.
The next morning after passing Beaverhead Rock, Captain Lewis and three of the men slung their knapsacks over their shoulders and set out for the mountains, determined not to return until they met some nation of Indians.
Two days later, August 11, Lewis with his spyglass espied a lone horseman on the hills. The wild-eyed Shoshone, accustomed to scan the horizon, saw him also.
"He is of a different nation from any we have met," remarked Lewis, watching intently through his glass. "He has a bow and a quiver of arrows, and an elegant horse without a saddle."
Like a lookout on the hills, the Indian stood and waited.
"He is undoubtedly a Shoshone. Much of our success depends on the friendly offices of that nation."