"No! no! no!" shouted all the Shoshones. "No trail that way."
But Clark believed the faithful old Toby. Evidently the Shoshones wished to detain them all winter.
Unseen by the Indians, at night a cache was dug at the head of the Jefferson, for the last of the heavy luggage, leaving out only Indian gifts and absolute necessities to carry on the pack-horses. The canoes were filled with rocks and sunk to the bottom of the river.
August 30, the expedition was ready. Before setting out the violins were brought and the men danced, to the great diversion of the Indians. Then, when they turned their faces to the Bitter Root, with the old guide and his four sons, the Shoshones set out east for their annual hunt on the Missouri.
From May to September the Shoshones lived on salmon that came up the mountain streams. Now that the salmon were gone, necessity compelled them forth. With swift dashes down the Missouri they were wont to kill and dry what buffalo they could, and retreat to consume it in their mountain fastnesses. The whites had surprised them in their very citadel—led by Sacajawea.
Along the difficult Bitter Root Mountains Lewis and Clark journeyed, meeting now and then Indian women digging yamp and pounding sunflower seeds into meal. Food grew scarce and scarcer, now and then a deer, a grouse, or a belated salmon stranded in some mountain pool. Sometimes they had but a bit of parched corn in their wallets, like the Immortals that marched to the conquest of Illinois.
But those snowy peaks that from a distance seemed so vast,—that like the Alps defied approach to any but a Hannibal or a Napoleon—now, as if to meet their conquerors, bent low in many a grassy glade.
In a pocket of the mountains now called Ross Hole, they came upon a camp of Flatheads, with five hundred horses, on their way to the Missouri for the Fall hunt of buffalo.
Unknown to them the Flatheads had been watching from the timber and had reported: "Strangers. Two chiefs riding ahead, looking at the country. One warrior painted black. The rest leading packhorses. Keep quiet. Wait. They are coming."
York's feet had become lame and he was riding with the Captains.