Two days later, on August 4th, the travelers had pushed on up the valley of the Missouri, to what was known as the Two Forks, between the towns of Grayling and Red Rock. They pitched their last camp, as nearly as they could determine, precisely where the Lewis and Clark party made their last encampment east of the Rockies, at what they called the Shoshoni Cove. This the boys called the Jump-off Camp, because this was where the expedition left its boats, and, ill fed and worn out, started on across the Divide for the beginning of their great journey into the Pacific Northwest.

Now they were under the very shoulders of the Rockies, and, so closely had they followed the narrative of the first exploration of the great river, and so closely had their own journey been identified with it, that now they were almost as eager and excited over the last stages of the journey to the summit as though it lay before them personally, new, unknown and untried. They hardly could wait to resume their following out of the last entangled skein of the great narrative.

“We’ve caught them at last, Uncle Dick!” exclaimed Jesse, spreading out his map on top of one of the kyacks in which Nigger had carried his load of kitchen stuff. “We’ve got almost a week the start of them here. This is August 4th, and it was August 10th when Lewis got here.”

“And by that time he’d been everywhere else!” said Rob. “Let’s figure him out—tying him up with that note the beaver carried off. That beaver certainly made a lot of trouble.

“Lewis left the note at the mouth of the Wisdom on August 4th. On August 5th Clark got there and went up the Wisdom. On August 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th, Shannon was lost up the Wisdom. On August 6th, Drewyer met Clark coming up the Wisdom River and turned him back; and Clark sent Field up the Wisdom after Shannon. Meantime Lewis had gone down to the junction at the Wisdom, not meeting the boats above the junction. He met Clark, coming back down the Wisdom with the boats. They then all went down to the mouth of the Wisdom and camped—that’s about a day’s march below where we camped, at the Beaverhead Rock.

“Then Lewis saw something had to be done. He told Clark to bring on the boats as fast as he could. He then made up a fast-marching party—himself, Drewyer, Shields, and McNeal—with packs of food and Indian trading stuff; he didn’t forget that part—and they four hit the trail in the high places only, still hunting for those Indians they’d been trying to find ever since they left the Great Falls. They were walkers, that bunch, for they left the Wisdom early August 9th, and they got here late on August 10th. That was going some!”

“Yes, but poor Clark didn’t get up here to where we are now until August 17th, a whole week later than Lewis. And by that time Lewis had come back down to this place where we are right now, and he was mighty glad to meet Clark. If he hadn’t, he’d have lost his Indians. You tell it now, Billy!” concluded Jesse, breathless.

“You mean, after Captain Lewis started west from here to cross the summit?”

“Yes.”

“All right. You can see why he went up this upper creek—it was the one that led straight to the top. The Red Rock River, as they now call the stream below what they call the Beaverhead River—it’s all one stream—bends off sharp south. The Horse Prairie Creek takes you straight up to Lemhi Pass, which ought to be called the Lewis Pass, but isn’t, though he was the first across it. Lewis was glad when he got to what they called the source, the next day after that.

“Now, he didn’t find any Indians right away. I allow he’d followed an Indian road toward that pass, but the tracks faded out. He knew he was due to hit Columbia waters now, beyond yon range, but what he wanted was Indians, so he kept on.

“Now all at once—I think it was August 11th, the same day he left camp here—about five miles up this creek, he saw an Indian, on horseback, two miles off! That was the first Indian they had seen since they left the Mandans the spring before. But Mr. Indian pulled his freight. That was when Lewis was ‘soarly chagrined’ with Shields, who had not stayed back till Lewis got his Indian gentled down some; he had him inside of one hundred yards at one time. He ‘abraided’ Shields for that; he says.

“But now, anyhow, they knew there was such a thing as an Indian, so they trailed this one, but they couldn’t catch him, and Lewis was scared he’d run all the other Indians back West. But on the next morning he ran into a big Indian road, that ran up toward the pass. There was a lowish mountain, running back about a half mile. The creek came out of the foot of that mountain——”

“I know,” interrupted John, who had his Journal spread before him. “Here’s what he said:

“Go on, Billy,” said Uncle Dick. “That’s all he says about actually crossing the Divide at Lemhi Pass! Tell us where they found the village.”

“Well, sir, that was beyond the Lemhi Pass, up in there, thirty miles from here, about. They’d been traveling, all right. Now that was August 12th, and on August 13th they were over, and had their first drink of ‘chaste and icy water out a Columbia river head spring.’ And all the while, back of us, poor old Clark and his men were dragging the boats up the chaste and icy waters of the Jefferson.

“Now that day they got into rough country, other side; but they didn’t care, because that day they saw two women and a man. They run off, too, and Lewis was ‘soar’ again; but all at once they ran plumb into three more—one an old woman, one a young woman, and one a kid. The young woman runs off. Now you ought to seen Cap. Lewis make friends with them people.

“He gives them some beads and awls and some paint. Drewyer don’t know their language, but he talks sign talk. He gets the old girl to call the young woman back. She comes back. Lewis gives her some things, too. He paints up their cheeks with the vermilion paint. From that time he had those womenfolks, young and old, feeding from the hand.

“So now they all start out for the village, which Lewis knew was not far away. Sure enough, they meet about sixty braves riding down the trail; and I reckon if Meriwether Lewis ever felt like stealing horses, it was then.

“Now the women showed their paint and awls and things. Lewis pulls up his shirt sleeve and shows his white skin. The chief gets down and hugs him, though that was the first white man they’d ever met in their lives. Then they had a smoke, like long-lost brothers. Then they went back to the Indian camp, four miles. Then Lewis allows something to eat would go fine, but old Cameahwait, the head man, hands him a few berries and choke cherries, which was all they had to eat. You see, this band was working east now, in the fall, to better hunting range—they had only bows and arrows.

“Lewis sends Drewyer and Shields out to kill some meat. The old chief makes a sand map for Lewis, but says he can’t get through, that way—meaning down the Salmon River, west of the Divide. Anyhow, they’d have no boats, for the timber was no good. So horses begin to look still better to Lewis.

“They had a good party, but nothing to eat, and the Indians were scared when he got them to know there were more white men back of him, on the east side the hill. He couldn’t talk, so he told it in beads, and jockeyed along till he got a half dozen to start back with him. So on August 16th he got back to this place here again, east of the summit, right where we’re camped now, and he had plenty Indians now—and nothing to feed them.

“But he waited to find Clark, and he didn’t know how far downstream Clark was, and he was afraid he’d lose his Indians any minute. So he writes a note to Clark, and gives it to his best man, Drewyer, to carry downstream fast as he can go. Lewis had promised to trade goods for horses, but the Shoshonis didn’t see any boats, and so they got suspicious.

“Well, it was night. Lewis had the head man and about a couple of dozen others in camp. He was plumb anxious. But next day, the 17th, he tells Drewyer to hot-foot down the river, with an Indian or two along with him. About two hours, an Indian came back and said that Lewis had told the truth, for he had seen boats on the river.

“Now between seven and eight o’clock that morning, Clark and Chaboneau and the Indian girl, SacÁgawea, all were walking on ahead of the boats, the girl a little ahead. All at once she begins to holler. They look up, and here comes several Indians and Drewyer with the note from Lewis. There’s nothing to it, after that.”

“Go on, Uncle Dick; you tell it now!” demanded Jesse, all excited.

“You mean about SacÁgawea?”

“Yes, sir.”

“It sounds like a border romance—and it was a border romance, literally.

“Here, on the river where she used to live, a young Indian woman ran out of the crowd and threw her arms around SacÁgawea. It was the girl who had been captured with her at the Three Forks, six years or more ago, by the Minnetarees! They had been slaves together. This other girl had escaped and got back home, by what miracle none of us ever will know.

“But now, when SacÁgawea had told her people how good the white men were, there was no longer any question of the friendship all around. As Billy expresses it, there was nothing to it, after that.

“You’d think that was asking us to believe enough? But no. The girl rushes up to Cameahwait, the chief, and puts her arms around him, too. He’s her brother, that’s all!

“Well, this seemed to give them the entrÉe into the best Shoshoni circles. Beyond this it was a question of details. Lewis stayed here till August 24th, trading for horses for all he was worth. He got five, for five or six dollars each in goods. They cached what goods they could spare or could not take, hid their canoes, and on August 24th bade the old Missouri good-by—for that year at least.

“They now went over west of the Divide, to the main village, to trade for more horses. They cut up their oars and broke up their remaining boxes and made pack saddles to carry their goods.

“Meantime, Clark and eleven men, all the good carpenters, had started on August 18th to cross the Divide and explore down for a route on the stream which we now know took them to the Salmon River. They traveled two days, to the Indian camp. Now the Journal takes page after page, describing these Indians.

“Now it was Clark’s turn to go ahead and find a way by horse or boat down to the Columbia. His notes tell of his troubles:

“Clark got more and more discouraging news about getting down the Lemhi River, on which they were camped, and the big river below—the Salmon River. But with the old man for guide, he went about seventy miles, into the gorge of the Salmon River, before he would quit. But he found that no man could get down that torrent, with either boat or pack train. He gave it up. They were nearly starved when they got back at the Indian camp, where Lewis and the other men were trading. SacÁgawea had kept all her people from going on east to the buffalo country, though now they none of them had anything to eat but a few berries and choke cherries. If the Indians had left, or if they had been missed by the party, the expedition would have ended there. The Indian girl once more had saved the Northwest for America, very likely.

“Now the old Indian guide said he knew a way across, away to the north. They hired him as guide. They traded for twenty-nine horses, and at last packed them and set out for the hardest part of their journey and the riskiest, though they did not know that then. On August 30th they set out. At the same time Cameahwait and his band set off east, after their fall hunt.

“That was the last that SacÁgawea ever saw of her brother or her girl friend. She went on with her white husband, into strange tribes—nothing further for her to look forward to now, for she was leaving home for another thousand miles, in the opposite direction.

“And that ended the long, hard, risky time the company of Volunteers for Discovery of the Northwest had in crossing the Continental Divide. We lie at the foot of their pass. Yonder they headed out for the setting sun!”

“Let’s go on after them, Uncle Dick!” exclaimed Jesse. “We’ve got a good outfit, and we’re not afraid!”

“I’ve been expecting that,” rejoined their leader. “I was afraid you’d want to go through! But we can’t do it, fellows, not this year at least. There’s the school term we’ve got to think of. We’re nearly three thousand miles from St. Louis. That means we’ll have to choose between two or three weeks of the hardest kind of mountain work and back out when we’ve got nowhere, and taking a fast and simple trip to the true head of the Missouri. Which would you rather do?”

“We don’t like to turn back,” said Rob.

“Well, it wouldn’t be turning back, really. It would be going to the real head of the Missouri—and neither Lewis nor Clark ever did that, or very many other men.” Billy spoke quietly.

“But don’t think,” he added, “that I’m not game to go on into the Bitter Roots, if you say so. I’m promising you she’s rough, up in there. The trail they took was a fright, and I don’t see how they made it. It ran to where this range angles into the corner of the Bitter Roots, and crossed there. They crossed another pass, too, and that makes three passes, from here. They got here July 10th, and three days later at last they hit the Lolo Creek trail, over the Lolo Pass—the way old Chief Joseph came east when he went on the war trail; he fought Gibbon in the battle of the Big Hole, above here.”

Rob sighed. “Well, it only took Lewis and Clark a couple of months to get through. But still, we’ve only got a couple of weeks.”

“What do you say, John? Shall we go south to the head with Billy?” Uncle Dick did not decide it alone.

“Vote yes, in the circumstances,” said John. “Hate to quit her, though!”

“You, Jess?”

“Oh, all right, I’ll haul off if the rest do. We’ll get to fish some, won’t we?”

“All you want. The best trout and grayling fishing there is left anywhere.”

“It’s a vote, Uncle Dick!” said Rob. “This is our head camp on this leg of the trip.”

“I think that’s wise,” said Uncle Dick.

“But before we leave here I want you to have a last look at the map.”

They spread it open in the firelight.

“This point is where Clark came and got the canoes the next year, 1806. They came back over the Lolo, but took a short cut, east of this mountain range, forty miles east of the other trail. They came over the Gibbon Pass—which ought to be called Clark’s Pass and isn’t—and headed southeast, the Indian girl being of use again now. They came down Grasshopper Creek, walking over millions of dollars of gold gravel, and found their canoes, not over a few hundred yards from where we sit, like enough.

“Then Clark and his men got in the boats and headed home. SacÁgawea showed them the trail up the Gallatin, over the Bozeman Pass, to the Yellowstone. And they went down that to its mouth.

“And now, one last touch to show what nerve those captains really had. Either could cut loose.

“Near what is now Missoula, on the Bitter Root—which Lewis called Clark’s Fork, after Clark, just as Clark named his Salmon River tributary after Lewis—Lewis took ten men and headed across lots for the Great Falls and then for the head of the Marias River!

“Surely, they began to scatter. Clark had left twenty men, the Indian girl and her baby, and they had fifty horses. At this place here, where we are in camp, Clark split his party again, some going down in the boats, some on horseback, but all traveling free and happy. They got here July 10th, and three days later were at the Three Forks, both parties, only one hour apart! They certainly had good luck in getting together.

“On that same day, Sergeant Ordway took six boats and nine men and started down the Missouri to meet Lewis at the Great Falls, or the mouth of the Marias. They made it down all right, and that is all we can say, for no record exists of that run downstream.

“Now, get all this straight in your heads and see how they had scattered, in that wild, unknown country, part in boats, part on shore—the riskiest way to travel. All the sergeants are captains now. We have four different companies.

“Gass is at the Great Falls, where Lewis split his party. Ordway is on his way down the river from the Three Forks to the Falls. Clark is with the horses now, headed east for the Yellowstone—which not a soul in that party knew a thing about, except the Indian girl, who insisted they would come out on the Yellowstone. And on that river the Clark party divided once more, part going in boats and part on horseback!

“Now figure five parties out of thirty-one men. Look at your map, remembering that the two land parties were in country they had never seen before. Yet they plan to meet at the mouth of the Yellowstone, over twelve hundred miles from where we are sitting here! That’s traveling! That’s exploring! And their story of it all is as plain and simple and modest as though children had done it. There’s nothing like it in all the world.”

He ceased to speak. The little circle fell silent.

“Go on, go on, Uncle Dick!” urged Jess. “You’ve not allowed us to read ahead that far. You said you’d rather we wouldn’t. Tell us, now.”

“No. Fold up your maps and close your journals for a while, here at our last camp on the greatest trail a river ever laid.

“We’re going fishing now, fellows—to-morrow we start east, gaining two years on Lewis and Clark. When we get down near the Yellowstone and Great Falls country again, going east ourselves, we’ll just finish up the story of the map till we reach the Mandans—which is where we left our own good ship Adventurer.

“To-morrow we head south, the other way. ‘This story is to be continued in our next,’ as the story papers say.

“Good night. Keep all this in your heads. It is a great story of great men in a great valley, doing the first exploring of the greatest country in the world—the land that is drained by the Missouri and its streams!

“Good luck, old tops!” he added, as he rose and stepped to the edge of the circle of light, waving his hand to the Divide above them. He stood looking toward the west.

“Whom are you speaking to, Uncle Dick?” asked John, as he heard no answer.

“I was just speaking to my friends, Captain Meriwether Lewis and Captain William Clark. Didn’t you see them pass our camp just now?”