"Yes," he said, "that is the Missouri River."
"The Missouri—at last!" whooped Lige, "hurray, now the fun will begin!"
Mr. and Mrs. Peniman looked at one another. To them the experiences that lay beyond the Missouri did not appeal in the light of fun.
The day had been hot and clear, and as the sun sank in the west it left a sky of intense brilliancy, shot with crimson and gold, fading away toward the horizon in tender pink and mauve and lavender. They drove into the straggling little trading-post of Florence, where the unhappy Mormons had passed such a tragic winter many years before, and as they left it and drove over a small hill their eyes fell upon a sight grander and more beautiful than Moses saw from the top of Nebo's Mountain. The valley of the Missouri lay before them, and with the great river sweeping by long lines of bluffs covered with waving trees it presented to them a panorama both magnificent and inspiring.
"See that great bluff over there, Joe?" called his father. "That's where the Lewis and Clark Expedition held their first great council with the Indians. It was called Council Bluffs in memory of that event, which was the beginning of the opening up of this great western country. I am told it has come to be a great Indian trading-station."
Twilight was beginning to fall as they drove into the trading-post, which is now the city of Council Bluffs.
It was a great sight to the young easterners. On every hand were Indians, Indians and more Indians. Some wearing the cotton shirt and trousers of civilization, others blankets, others rejoicing in the garb of nature, augmented by a breech-clout and a few feathers in their hair. The squaws with their papooses strapped on their backs stood stolidly about, some in blankets, some in ugly calico "Mother Hubbard" wrappers. These Indians were mostly Omahas, with some Pawnees, Arapahoes and Potawatamis, all friendly to the white man. The Omaha Reservation was but a short distance away, and the Indians were bringing in skins, furs, and buffalo hides and exchanging them for blankets, flour, coffee, and the white man's "fire-water."
There were many emigrant wagons gathered in the wide straggling street, between two rows of one-story shanties, and white men were trading with red men, home-seekers anxiously seeking information, dogs were barking, children crying, men arguing and swearing, while the patient oxen hitched to the wagons breathed gusty sighs of rest, and the few women who were on their way to a home in the new country west of the Missouri looked on with troubled eyes or hurried in and out of the few straggling shops making their purchases.
The Peniman family had all alighted from their wagons before the general store, and while Mr. and Mrs. Peniman went in to make some purchases, followed by David and the little girls, Joe and Lige stood outside, looking with interested attention at the strange, novel spectacle of an Indian trading-station.
They were watching some white men who were talking with a group of Indians. Suddenly Joe pricked up his ears and walked nearer.