Near where the city of Council Bluffs now stands, Lewis and Clark held a great meeting with the Indians. They told the Indians that the people of the United States and not the people of France were now the owners of this great land. Together they smoked the "pipe of peace," and the Indians promised to be friendly.
On they went till the region near the Black Hills was reached. It was the fall of the year and the trees were bright with color, and the wild ducks and geese in large numbers were seen going southward.
Spent the winter with the Indians
The company spent the winter on an island sixteen hundred miles from St. Louis. The men built rude homes and fortified them. The Indians were friendly and the explorers spent many evenings around the wigwam fires listening to stories of the country the Indians had to tell them.
The Rocky Mountains
In the spring they bade the Indians good-by, passed the mouth of the Yellowstone, and traveled on till the Rocky Mountains with their long rows of snow-covered peaks came into view.
On the thirteenth day of June they beheld wonderful pictures of the "Falls of the Missouri." The water tore through a vast gorge a dozen miles or more in length.
CAPTAIN WILLIAM CLARK
From the original painting by Charles Wilson Peale in Independence Hall, Philadelphia