Balboa, Magellan, Cortez, Mackenzie,—Lewis and Clark had joined the immortals.
XVIII
FORT CLATSOP BY THE SEA
December had now arrived, and southwest storms broke upon the coast with tremendous force. Off Cape Disappointment, the surges dashed to the height of the masthead of a ship, with most terrific roaring. A winter encampment could no longer be delayed.
"Deer, elk, good skin, good meat," said the Chinook Indians, in pantomime, pointing across the bay to the south.
Accordingly, thither the eggshell boats were guided, across the tempestuous Columbia, to the little river Netul, now the Lewis and Clark, ten miles from the ocean.
Beside a spring branch, in a thick grove of lofty firs about two hundred yards from the water, the leather tent was set up and big fires built, while all hands fell to clearing a space for the winter cabins.
In four days the logs were rolled up, Boonsboro fashion, into shelters for the winter. "The foinest puncheons I iver saw," said Patrick Gass, head carpenter, as he set to splitting boards out of the surrounding firs.
By Christmas seven cabins were covered and the floors laid. The chinks were filled with clay, and fir-log fires were set roaring in the capacious chimneys that filled an entire end of each cabin. On Christmas day they moved in, wet blankets and all, with rounds of firearms and Christmas salutes.
The leather tent, soaked for days, fell to pieces. The heavy canisters of powder, every one of which had been under the water in many a recent capsize, were consigned in safety to the powder-house.
On New Year's Eve the palisades were done, and the gates were closed at sunset.