“‘The Countrey on each Side the river is fine, interspursed with Praries, on which immence herds of Deer is seen. On the banks of the river we observe number of Deer watering and feeding on the young willow, Several killed to-day.... The Praries come within a Short distance of the river on each Side, which contains in addition to Plumbs Raspberries &c., and quantities of wild apples, great numbrsof Deer are seen feeding in the young willows and Earbarge on the Banks and on the Sand bars in the river.’”
“‘The Countrey on each Side the river is fine, interspursed with Praries, on which immence herds of Deer is seen. On the banks of the river we observe number of Deer watering and feeding on the young willow, Several killed to-day.... The Praries come within a Short distance of the river on each Side, which contains in addition to Plumbs Raspberries &c., and quantities of wild apples, great numbrsof Deer are seen feeding in the young willows and Earbarge on the Banks and on the Sand bars in the river.’”
“I didn’t know that deer liked willow leaves,” said John.
“I didn’t, either, but here it is. And that was June 26th, when the grass was up. I’ve even known some naturalists to say that deer don’t eat grass. We know they do.
“But what we want to get here is the idea that now the expedition was just coming out of the hills and woods into the edge of the Prairies. Across these Prairies and the Plains came big river valleys that led out West toward the Rockies. If all that had been hills and timber, no road ever would have got through. It was the big waterways that made the roadsinto all the wilderness; we certainly learned that up in the Far North, didn’t we?
“So here was their crossroads of the waters, at old Independence, which now is Kansas City. Not much here, but a natural place for the Gate to the West.
“Clark had a good real-estate eye. He says:
“‘The Countrey about the mouth of this river is verry fine on each Side as well as north of the Missourie. A high Clift on the upper Side of the Kanses ½ a mile up, below the Kanses the hills is about 1-½ Miles from the point on the North Side of the Missourie the Hills or high lands is Several Miles back.... The high lands come to the river Kansas on the upper Side at about ½ a mile, in full view, & a butifull place for a fort, good landing place.’
“‘The Countrey about the mouth of this river is verry fine on each Side as well as north of the Missourie. A high Clift on the upper Side of the Kanses ½ a mile up, below the Kanses the hills is about 1-½ Miles from the point on the North Side of the Missourie the Hills or high lands is Several Miles back.... The high lands come to the river Kansas on the upper Side at about ½ a mile, in full view, & a butifull place for a fort, good landing place.’
“He couldn’t spell much, or put in his punctuation marks, but he certainly had a practical eye. And I reckon the first beginnings of the city were right then, for theJournalsays, ‘Completed a strong redoubt or brestwork from one side to the other, of logs and Bushes Six feet high.’ Yes, I suppose that was the first white building here at the Gate.
“It’s pretty hard to find any new part of the world to-day. Yonder runs the Kaw, leading to the Santa Fe Trail—and I’ll bet there’s a thousand motor cars going west right now, a hundredtimes as many cars each day as there used to be wagons in a year!”
He closed his book for the time. “Maybe that’s what Uncle Dick wanted us to get in our heads!” said he.
“Some country!” said Jesse; and both John and Rob agreed.
When their leader returned a little later in the evening, the boys told him what they had been doing.
“Fine!” he said. “Fine! Well, I’ve just telegraphed home that we’re all right and that we’re off for the Platte to-morrow, early.”
“That’s another old road to the Rockies,” said Rob.
“One of the greatest—the very greatest, when you leave out boat travel. The Platte Valley led out the men with plows on their wagons, the home makers who stayed West. You see, our young leaders were only pathfinders, not home makers.”
“And a jolly good job they had!” said Jesse.
“Yes, and jolly well they did the job, son, as you’ll see more and more.”
John was running a finger over the crude map which he and Jesse had been making from day to day. “Hah!” said he. “Here’s the bigPlatte Valley coming in, but no big city at the mouth.”
“Oh yes, there is,” corrected Uncle Dick. “Omaha and Council Bluffs you can call the same as at the mouth of the Platte, for they serve that valley with a new kind of transportation, that of steam, which did not have to stick to the watercourse, but took shorter cuts.
“It’s odd, but our explorers seem even then to have heard of a road to Santa Fe. They also say the Kansas River is described as heading ‘with the river Del Noird in the black Mountain or ridge which Divides the Waters of the Kansas, Del Nord, & Collarado.’ No doubt the early French or the Indians confused the Kaw with the Arkansas.
“Enough! Taps, Sergeant! To bed, all of you,” he concluded; and they were willing to turn in.
In the morning early they were at the dock, and were greeted by Johnson, who, sure enough, had the gasoline cans filled and most of the heavy supplies aboard. By eight-thirty they were chugging away again up the water front of the city, their Flag flying, so that many thought it was a government boat of some sort.
Jesse tried to write in his notebook, but did not make much of a success, owing to the trembling of the boat under the double power.
“He always says ‘we set out and proceeded on,’” Jesse explained. “I was trying to write how the expedition left the mouth of the Kansas River.”
“Look out for ‘emence numbers of Deer on the banks,’ now,” sung out John, who had theJournalon a box top near by. “‘They are Skipping in every derection. The party killed 9 Bucks to-day!’”
“But no buffalo yet,” said Rob.
“No, not till we get up around Council Bluffs—then we’ll begin to get among them.”
“And by to-morrow afternoon we’ll be where they celebrated their first Fourth of July. It was along in here. They celebrated the day by doing fifteen miles—closing the day by another ‘Descharge from our Bow piece’ and an extra ‘Gill of Whiskey.’ I don’t call that much of a Fourth!” John seemed disgusted.
“Well, maybe the soldiers didn’t, for they had ‘Tumers & Felons & the Musquiters were verry bad,’” he went on. “I don’t think their grub list was right—too much meat and salt stuff. But from now on they certainly did get plenty of game—all kinds of it, bears, deer,elk, beaver, venison, buffalo, turkeys, geese, grouse, and fish. You see, Jesse, they got some of those ‘white catfish’ like the last one you caught—a ‘channel cat,’ I suppose we’d call it. And they ate wild fruit along shore. I think the hunters had better chance than the oarsmen.
“They saw elk sign not far above the Kansas River, but I don’t think they got any elk till August 1st. Above there they got into the antelope, which they called ‘goat,’ and described very carefully. They sent President Jefferson the first antelope ever seen east of the Alleghanies. Then they got into the bighorn sheep, which also were altogether new, and the grizzly bear, which they called the ‘white bear.’ Oh, they had fun enough from here on north!”
“Yes, and did their work besides, and a lot of it,” affirmed Uncle Dick. “But while we are comparing notes we might just as well remember they had some bad storms. I don’t like the look of that bank of clouds.”
They all noted the heavy ridges of black clouds to the west. The wind changed, coming down the river in squalls which tore up the surface of the water and threw the bow of the boat off its course.
“Steady, Rob! Slow down!” called out Uncle Dick, who had begun to pull the tarpaulin overthe cargo. “I can’t judge the water in this wind.Look out, all!”
Suddenly there came a jolt and a jar which drove them from their seats. The propellers had struck a sand bar and plowed into it. Caught by the wind, the bow of the boat swung around into the current. Careening, the lower rail went under and the water came pouring in.
“
Hold her, boys!” called out Uncle Dick. “Overboard! Hold her up!”
Even as he spoke he had plunged overboard on the upstream side, throwing his weight on the rail. The water caught him nearly waist deep, for the treacherous bar shelved rapidly.
It was not so deep where Rob went in, but Jesse and John, thoughtlessly plunging in on the lower side, were swept under the boat, which all the strength of the other two could not hold back against the combined power of the current and the wind.
Without warning they were cast into an accident which in nine cases out of ten would have meant death to some or all of them.
The boat was filling fast, and the great weight of the outboard motors buried her stern, so she was about to swamp in midstream. Uncle Dick in horror saw the set faces of two of his young friends at the rail beyond him, their legs under the boat, which was swinging on them, their terror showing in their eyes.He made one grasp across the boat, and luckily caught Jesse’s hand. Their combined weight held the boat down by the bow, and she swung downstream, half full but not sinking.
“Swim for it, John, as soon as we reach the island!”
The voice of Uncle Dick rose high and clear. A willow-clad island lay below, toward which the boat now was setting. He knew the boys all could swim, and they were all lightly dressed, with canvas sneakers and no coat.
“All right!” replied John, confidently, now getting his legs free. “I can make it.” Indeed, it did not seem the boat could carry another pound. Rob was swimming on the upstream side, one hand on the stern. Keeping low in the water, they floated on down in the black squall of wind and rain which now came on them. Their course downstream was very rapid.
“Now, John!” Uncle Dick gave the word, and John, without one instant’s hesitation, struck out for the island, now not over forty yards away over the choppy, rain-whipped water. His head was seen bobbing over the waves, but gaining distance. Uncle Dick hardly breathed as he watched.
The boat was lightened a little. Rob took achance, climbed in over the stern, and, catching up a setting pole, began to reach for bottom on the upstream side. He caught it and, putting in all his strength, swung the bow across stream, repeating again and again, until the boat was not far back of John’s bobbing head. Then all at once Uncle Dick gave a shout. His feet had struck bottom on the shelving sand once more. Between them they now could guide and drag the boat till they made a landing, with Jesse on top the cargo, only about fifty yards below where John was headed. They saw him scramble up the bank, lie for an instant half exhausted, and then come running down the shore to them. They all dragged at the water-logged boat until they had her ashore so she would hold.
“And that’s that!” panted John, coolly and slangily enough.
Till then no one had spoken. Uncle Dick couldn’t speak at first. He only drew Jesse and John to him, one to each arm, wet as they all were, and in the rain now pouring down. “Fine, boys!” said he.
“The closest squeak we’ve ever had,” said Rob, at last. “Right here in the settlements! There’s the city of Leavenworth just around the bend.”
“Close enough!” said Uncle Dick. “And my compliments to you all, every one. If it had been a lot of chaps less cool and ready, we’d none of us have been saved. Rob, who taught you to paddle on the up side when crossing a current?”
“I learned it of Moise Richard, on the Peace River, sir,” replied Rob.
“Right! Most people try to hold her nose against the current by working on the lower side. Upstream is right—and I must say the setting pole saved the day. But, John, you’ll never know how I dreaded to tell you to cast free and swim for it. I thought it was safest for you.”
“Oh, that’s nothing,” said John. But at the same time he was very proud of his feat.
They were wet to the skin and the rain was cold, their boat was full of water and their stores wet. At last, surely, they had an adventure on their hands. But they were not downhearted over it at all.
“All hands lay to for camp!” called Uncle Dick.
THEY SAW HIM SCRAMBLE UP THE BANK, LIE FOR AN INSTANT HALF EXHAUSTED, AND THEN COME RUNNING DOWN THE SHORE TO THEMTHEY SAW HIM SCRAMBLE UP THE BANK, LIE FOR AN INSTANT HALF EXHAUSTED, AND THEN COME RUNNING DOWN THE SHORE TO THEM
They began to unload the heavier stuff, so they could cant the boat and spill the bilge water out of her. The tarpaulin was thrown over some willow bushes for a shelter, andunder this they piled their grub boxes and dunnage rolls. The beds were all in watertight canvas bags, and so were their spare clothes, so matters might have been worse. The guns could be dried, and the tarpaulin had kept the lighter articles from washing away. In a little while they got the tent up, and then they folded the wet tarpaulin for a floor and hurried their outfit inside, damp but yet not ruined.
“Get some boughs to put inside,” suggested their leader. “Get out that little forced-draught oil stove and let’s see if we can dry out. It’s going to be hard to get a fire on this island in this rain, for there’s nothing but willows. They’re wet. Get the little stove going and pull shut the flaps. When it gets a little warmer we’ll open the bags and change our clothes. And as John would say, that’ll be that! But it’s only by mercy that we’re here. You are right, Rob, this is the most serious accident we have ever had together.”
“Let’s open a can of soup, and issue an extra gill of tea,” said Rob.
They broke into a roar of laughter. Inside of half an hour the little hut was steaming and they all were sitting on boxes eating their evening meal. The storm, which had culminatedin a fierce thunder gust, now was muttering itself away.
Jesse went out and brought in the Flag from its staff on the boat. “We’ll have to dry her,” he said. “She’s silk, and fast colors.”
“And I think my expeditionary force is all true blue!” added Uncle Dick, quietly.
In the night Jesse waked them all by suddenly crying out in a nightmare. Rob shook him awake.
“What’s wrong, old top?” he asked.
“I guess I was scared,” admitted Jesse, frankly, and pulled the covers over his head.
On the morning following the storm the sun broke through the clouds with promise of a clear, warm day. Ourvoyageurswere astir early.
“Take it easy, fellows,” counseled the leader. “We’ve got to ‘sun our powder,’ as ourJournalwould say. John, when you set down the day’s doings in your own journal, make it simple as William Clark would. It’s more manly. Well, here we are.”
Rob looked ruefully at the wet willow thicket in which their camp was pitched. “We can get a few dead limbs,” he said, “but, wet as things are now, we’d only smoke the stuff and not dry it much.”
“Wait for the sun,” advised John. And this they found it wise to do, not leaving the island until nearly noon.
“Morale pretty good!” said Uncle Dick. “John, set down, ‘Men in verry high sperrits.’ And off we go!”
They chugged up directly to the point, asnearly as they could determine, where they had met the disaster of the previous day. “Keep leading a horse up to a newspaper and he’ll quit shying at it,” said Uncle Dick. “Find the very spot where we struck.”
“There she is!” exclaimed Rob, presently. The boat stuck again and began to swing. But this time the setting pole held her bow firm, and, since there was no wind, a strong shove pushed her free without anyone getting overboard. They went on after that with greater confidence than ever, and Jesse began to sing the old canoe song of the voyagers, “En roulant ma boule, roulant!”
They paused at none of the cities and towns now, and only set down the rivers and main features, as they continued their steady journey day after day for all of a week. At the end of that time the increasing shallowness of the river, the many sand bars and the nature of the discolored, rolling waters, made them sure they were approaching the mouth of the great Platte River, which, as they knew, rose far to the west in the Rocky Mountains.
Here they went into a camp and rested for almost a day, bringing up their field notes and maps and getting a good idea of the country bycomparing their records with the old journals of the great expedition.
“Bear in mind that, after all, they were not the first,” said Uncle Dick. “They had picked up old Dorion, their interpreter, from a canoe away down in Missouri, and brought him back up to help them with the Sioux, where he had lived. Their bowman Cruzatte and several other Frenchmen had spent two years up in here, at the mouth of the Loup. There were a lot of cabins, Indian trading camps, one of them fifty years old, along this part of the river.
“But when they got up this far, they were coming into the Plains. New animals now, before so very long. They really were explorers, for there were no records to help them.”
“You say they found new animals now,” Rob began. “You mean elk, buffalo?”
“Yes. No antelope yet.”
“They made the Loup by July 9th, above the Nodaway,” said John, his finger in theJournal. “Two days later they got into game all right, for Drewyer killed six deer that day himself, and another killed one, so they had meat in camp.
“They made the Nemaha by July 14th, and I think that was almost the first time they gotsight of elk. Clark fired at one that day, but didn’t get him. That was where he first wrote his name and date on a rock—he says the rock ‘jucted out over the water.’ I think that was near the mouth, on the banks of the Nishnabotna River, but I don’t suppose a fellow could find it now, do you?”
“No. It never has been reported, like the two Boone signatures in Kentucky,” replied Uncle Dick. “He only wrote his name twice—once up in Montana. But now, think how this new sort of country struck them. Patrick Gass says, ‘This is the most open country I ever saw, almost one continued prairie.’ What are you writing down, Jesse?”
“‘Musquitors verry troublesome,’” grinned Jesse, watching a big one on his wrist. “I’ll bet they were awful.”
“And the men all had ‘tumers and boils,’ in spite of their ‘verry high sperrits,’” broke in John, from theJournal. “And they gave Alexander Willard a hundred lashes and expelled him from the enlisted roll, for sleeping on sentinel post—which he had coming to him. But all the same, theJournalsays that this party was healthier than any party of like size ‘in any other Situation.’ His main worry was these pesky ‘musquitors.’ He killed a deer,but they were so bad he found it ‘Painfull to continue a Moment Still’!
“Here’s something for you, Jesse!” he added, laughing. “One day in a ‘fiew minits Cought 3 verry large Cat fish, one nearly white, a quort of Oile came out of the Surpolous fat of one of those fish.’ And all the time they are mentioning turkeys and geese and beaver—isn’t it funny that all those creatures then lived in the same place? On August 2d, Drewyer and Colter, two of the hunters, brought in the horses loaded with elk meat. But that was just above the Platte, nearer Council Bluffs.”
“One thing don’t forget,” said Uncle Dick at this time. “All that hunting was incidental to those men. About the biggest part of their business was to get in touch with the Indian tribes and make friends with them. You’ll see, they stuck around the mouth of the Platte quite a while, sending out word, to get the Indians in. The same day Drewyer and Colter got the elk the men brought in a ‘Mr. Fairfong,’ an interpreter, who had some Otoes and Missouri Indians. Then there were presents and speeches, and they hung some D.S.O. medals on a half dozen of the chiefs and told them to be good, or the Great Father at Washington would get them.
“Well, that’s all right. But what I want you to notice is the camp at Council Bluffs. That wasn’t where the city of Council Bluffs, Iowa, is, but on the opposite side of the river, about twenty-five miles above Omaha—not far from Fort Calhoun. There was no Omaha then. I can remember my own self when Omaha was young. I used to shoot quail on the Elkhorn and the Papilion Creek, just above Omaha, and grand sport there was for quail and grouse and ducks all through that country then.
“But Lewis and Clark had a wide eye. They knew natural points of advantage, and they must have foreseen what the Platte Valley was going to mean before long. They say that Council Bluffs was ‘a verry proper place for a Tradeing Establishment and fortification.’ Trust them to know the ‘verry proper places’! Only, what I can’t understand is the note that it is ‘twenty-five days from this to Santafee.’ That’s a puzzler. The natural place of departure for Santa Fe was where Kansas City is, not Omaha. But, surely, they had heard of it, somehow.”
“Well,” said Rob, “we’re doing pretty well, pretty well. In spite of delays, we’re at the mouth of the Platte, sixteen days out, and they didn’t get there till July 21st. I figure threehundred and sixty-six miles to Kansas City, and two hundred and sixty-six miles to here, say six hundred and thirty-two miles for sixteen days—the river chart says six hundred and thirty-five miles. That keeps us pretty close to our average we set—over forty miles a day. We’ve got to boost that, though.
“Are we going to stop at Omaha, sir?” he added, rather anxiously.
“Not on anybody’s life!” rejoined Uncle Dick. “Nice place, but we’re a day late. No, sir, we’ll skip through without even a salute to the tribes from our bow piece. We’ve got to get up among the Sioux. Dorion has been talking all the time about the Sioux. So good-by for the present to the Platte tribes, the Pawnees, Missouris, and Otoes.”
“Gee! I’d like to shoot something,” said Jesse, wistfully. “Just reading about things, now!”
“Forget it for a while, Jess,” smiled his uncle. “Just remember that we’re under the eaves of two great cities, here at Plattsmouth. Take comfort in the elk and beaver sign you can imagine in the sand, here at the mouth of this river. It still is six hundred yards wide, with its current ‘verry rapid roleing over Sands.’
“Two voyagers of the Lewis and Clark expedition had wintered here before that time, trapping—the beaver were so thick. Imagine yourself not far up the river and shooting at an elk four times, as Will Clark did—then not getting him. Imagine yourself along with that summer fishing party along this little old river, and getting upward of eight hundred fish, seventy-nine pike, and four hundred and ninety cats; and again three hundred and eighteen ‘silver fish’—I wonder, now, if that really could have been the croppy? Lord! boy—what a time they had, strolling, hunting, fishing, exploring new lands, visiting Indians, having the time of their lives!”
“Let’s be off,” suggested Rob. And soon they were plugging along up the great river, threading their way among the countless bars and shoals.
“I can see the full boats coming down the Platte!” said Jesse, shading his eyes, “hide canoes, full of beaver bales, that float light! And there are thevoyageurs, all with whiskers and long rifles and knives.”
“Yes,” said Uncle Dick, gravely. “And here are our men, tall, in uniform coats and buckskin leggings. See now”—and he reached for John’s volume—“they let off the deserter,Moses Reed, very light. He only had to run the gantlet of the entire party four times—each man with nine switches—and get dropped from the rolls of the Volunteers!
“And here is where Captain Lewis, experimenting with some strange water he had found—with some cobalt and ‘isonglass’ in it—got very ill from it. His friend Clark says ‘Copperas and Alum is verry pisen.’”
“But when did they first find the buffalo?” demanded Jesse, fingering once more the little rifle which always lay near him in the boat. “Gee! now, I’d like to kill a buffalo!”
“All in due time, all in due time, Jess!” his leader replied. “My, but you are bloodthirsty! Wait now till August 23d, above Sioux City. You are Captain William Clark, with your elk-hide notebook inside your shirt front, and you have gone ashore and have killed a fat buck. And when you get back to the boat J. Fields comes in and says he has killed a buffalo, in the plain ahead; and Lewis takes twelve men and has the buffalo brought to the boat at the next bend; so you just make no fuss over that first buffalo, and set it down in your elk-hide book. And that same day two elk swam across the river ahead of the boat. And that same evening R. Field brought in two deer on a horse,and another deer was shot from the boat; and they all saw elk standing on a sand bar, and several prairie wolves. And the very next day, don’t you remember, you saw great herds of buffalo? Oh, now you’re in the Plains! Everybody now is ‘jurking meat.’ What more do you want, son?”
“Aw, now!” said Jesse. “Well, anyway, we’re about in town.”
“
Now we are leaving the Pawnees and passing into the Sioux country!” said Rob.
They were passing under the great railroad bridge which connected Council Bluffs, Iowa, with Omaha, Nebraska. The older member of the party nodded gravely. “And can’t you see the long lines of the white-topped covered wagons going west—a lifetime later than Lewis and Clark, when still there was no bridge here at all? Can’t you see the Mormons going west, with their little hand carts, and their cows hitched up to wagons with the oxen? Look at the ghosts, Rob! Hit her up. Let’s get out of here!”
“She’s running fine,” Rob went on. “Somehow I think this must be better water, above the Platte. You know, Lewis and Clark only averaged nine miles a day, but along in here for over two hundred miles they were beating that, doing seventeen and one-quarter, twenty and one-quarter, seventeen, twenty-two and one-half,seventeen and one-half, sixteen, seventeen, twenty and one-half, twenty and one-half, fifteen, ten and three-quarters, fifteen, ten—not counting two or three broken days. They seem to have got the hang of the river, somehow.”
“So have we,” nodded the other. “I’ll give you five days to make Sioux City.”
As a matter of fact, the stout little shipAdventurernow began to pick up on her own when they had passed that Iowa city, going into camp on the evening of June 4th well above the town. They purchased bread, poultry, eggs, and butter of a near-by farmer, and opened a jar of marmalade for Jesse, to console him for the lack of buffalo.
“It’s my birthday, too, to-day,” said Jesse. “I was born on the fourth day of June, fourteen years ago. My! it seems an awful long time.”
“Well, Captain Meriwether Lewis was not born on this day,” said his uncle, “but his birthday was celebrated on this spot by his party, on August 18, 1805, and they celebrated it with a dance, and an ‘extra gill of whiskey.’”
“We’ll issue an extra gill of marmalade to the men to-night, and conclude our day of hard travel with a ‘Descharge of the Bow piece,’ just because it’s the Fourth of June. We’rehitting things off in great style now, and I’m beginning to have more confidence in gasoline.”
“What made you want to get to this place, Uncle Dick?” asked John, his own mouth rather full of fried chicken.
“Because of the location—the mouth of the Sioux River, and at the lower edge of the great Sioux nation.
“Lewis and Clark tried to get peace among all these river tribes. They held a big council here, decorating a few more Otoes and Missouris, and telling them to make peace with the Omahas and the Pawnee Loups. The Sioux had not yet been found, though their hunting fires were seen all through here, and Lewis was very anxious to have his interpreter, Dorion, find some Sioux and bring them into council.
“It was at Captain Lewis’s birthday party that the first and only casualty of the trip ensued. You remember Sergeant Floyd—he spelled worse than Clark, and Ordway worse than either—and his journal of some twenty thousand words, which he had kept till now? Well, he danced hard at the birthday party or at the Indian council, and got overheated, after which he lay down on the damp sand and got chilled. It gave him what theJournalcalls a‘Biliose Chorlick,’ and on the second day he died. He was buried on the bluffs below the town, at what still is called Floyd’s Bluff, on the river they named after him, with military honors, and his grave long was known. His river still is known by his name, and it runs right into the town of Sioux City. The river washed the bank away under his grave, and in 1857 the remains were reburied, back from the river. That spot was marked by a slab in 1895, and a monument was put over it in May, 1901. I was a guest at the dedication of that obelisk. It was erected under the supervision of General Hiram Chittenden, the great engineer and great historian. It has a city park all of its own, and a marvelous landscape it commands.
“Well, poor Floyd had no memorial in those rude days, beyond a ‘seeder post.’ They did what they could and then they ‘set out under a gentle Breeze and proceeded on.’”
“Well, but Dorion knew this country, then?” John began again, after a time.
“Yes,” Rob was first to answer, “and that’s what puzzles me—how they got such exact knowledge of a wild region. I suppose it was because they had no railroads and so had to know geography.The Journalsays that theSioux River heads with the St. Peter’s (Minnesota) River, passing the head of the Des Moines; all of which is true. And it tells of the Red Pipestone quarry, on a creek coming into the Sioux. Clark puts down all those things and does not forget the local stuff. He says the ‘Countrey above the Platte has a great Similarity’—which means the Plains as they saw them. And look, in John’s book—here he says ‘I found a verry excellent froot resembling the read Current,’ What was it—the Sarvice berry? He says it is ‘about the Common hight of a wild Plumb.’ Nothing escaped these chaps—geography, natural history, game, Indians, or anything else! They must have worked every minute of the day.”
“I think his new berry was what we used to call the buffalo berry, in our railway surveys out West,” said Uncle Dick. “It was bigger than a currant and made very fair pies.
“But now we’ve just begun to catch up with our story, for we were talking some time back where they first got a buffalo. That was about thirty or forty miles above here. By to-morrow night we’ll camp in our fifth state since we left home—Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota.”
“On our way!” sung out Rob. “We haven’tgot any antelope yet, nor found a prairie dog, nor seen a single Sioux.”
“Softly, softly!” smiled the older companion. “At least we’re in the Sioux and antelope range.”
Their little tent was pitched within a short distance of the river, and their fire made shadows along the wall of willows. At times they all fell silent, bringing to mind the wild scenes of this same country in a time which now began to seem not so long ago.
“My!” said Jesse, after a time, as he sat on his bed roll, his hands clasped before his knees. “Think of it! The Plains, the buffalo, the Indians! Weren’t they the lucky guys!”
“Well, yes,” replied his uncle, “though I’d rather call them fortunate gentlemen than lucky guys. One thing sure, they were accurate when they said the ‘musquitors were verry troublesom’ in all this Missouri Valley. They had to issue nets and bars to the men, so it says, and the misquitr, or mosquiter, or musquitor, was about the only ‘anamal’ they feared. If we don’t turn in, they’ll carry us off to-night.”
“
It’s a long, long way up to the Mandans!” sang John at the second camp above the Council Bluffs. “Wonder if we ever will get there before winter! Here we are, just below the Vermilion, over nine hundred and fifty miles up the river, and over three weeks out, but we’re only halfway to the Yellowstone, and still a good deal more than six hundred miles below the Mandan Villages, though I’ve counted fifty-three towns and cities we’ve passed in the river, coming this far. It certainly does look as though we’ll have to winter up there, sure enough.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” demurred Rob, consulting the pages of his own notebook. “No fellow can ask an outboard motor to do better than ours have. I’ll admit we’re just inside our forty-mile-a-day stunt, but that’s five miles an hour and only eight hours a day. I’ll bet they would have been mighty glad to do half that.”
“I’ve been wondering how they were able to spurt so much, north of the Platte,” said John.
“I’ll bet I know!” broke in Jesse. “It’s because the shores were more open, so they could use the cordelle! They’d been doing it, too, for on August 26th they made a new ‘Toe line’ out of braided elk-hide. Clark killed an elk on August 25th, and Reuben Fields killed five deer that day, and George Shannon killed an elk that day, too. So they ‘jurked the meet,’ and made the hides into a tracking line. That beats rowing or paddling to get up a river. We saw that on the Peace River and the Mackenzie, didn’t we?”
“I believe you’re right, son!” said Rob. “These long sandy reaches, where the men could trot on the line—that was where they got their mileage, I’ll warrant.”
“George Shannon?” said Uncle Dick, who was listening as he sat on his bed roll near the fire. “George Shannon, eh? Well, he didn’t bring in any more elk meat after that for many a day, that’s sure.”
“I know!” Rob nodded. “That’s the man that got lost!”
“Yes, and trouble enough it gave the party and the leaders. They sent out two men, Shields and J. Fields, to find him and the horses. That was the second day. But they didn’t find him. He didn’t show up for sixteendays. Luckily, he kept on ahead of the boat all the time, but, as we all know, the most confusing way on earth to get lost from a party is while you are on foot and the party is in a boat. Even Sir Alexander Mackenzie got lost that way, on the Findlay River; and so have we all of us.”
“Well, poor Shannon nearly starved to death. I don’t think he was a first-class hunter, either, or he’d not have gone out without his ammunition. In a country swarming with game he went for twelve days with only grapes to eat, except one rabbit that he shot with a piece of stick instead of a bullet. He held on to one horse, and lucky he did. Here’s what theJournalsays about Shannon—whom Lewis himself found:
“‘He became weak and feable deturmined to lay by and wait for a tradeing boat, which is expected. Keeping one horse as a last resorse, yet a man had like to have starved to death in a land of Plenty for the want of Bullits or something to kill his meat.’”
“‘He became weak and feable deturmined to lay by and wait for a tradeing boat, which is expected. Keeping one horse as a last resorse, yet a man had like to have starved to death in a land of Plenty for the want of Bullits or something to kill his meat.’”
“Where was he when they found him?” John had his map ready.
“Well, let’s see. They found him on September 11th, and they had traveled thirteen days, not counting stops, and made one hundred and sixty miles by the river. They must bythen have been at least thirty miles above what is now Fort Randall, South Dakota—I should say, somewhere near Wheeler, South Dakota. Well, something of a walk for George, eh?”
“Rather!” was Jesse’s comment. “Oh, I suppose it’s easy to call him a dub, but the commanding officers didn’t.”
“But now,” went on their leader, “a lot of things have been happening since Shannon left, and here are a lot of interesting things to keep in mind. One thing is, they expected a trading boat up. That must have been from St. Louis, for Trudeau’s post. That was long before the days of the regular fur forts, and that accounts for all this country having its French names on it.
“Another thing or two: By this time, in lower South Dakota, everybody was killing buffalo and elk, great quantities of splendid meat. By now, also, in early September, they had got on the antelope range for the first time, and their first ‘goat,’ as they called it, was skinned and described. They got another new animal, which they called a ‘barkeing squirel,’ or ‘ground rat’—on September 7th. That was the first prairie dog, a great curiosity to them—the same day they saw their first ‘goat.’ They managed to drown out one prairie dog, whichI never heard of anyone else being able to do. They dug down six feet, and did not get halfway to the ‘lodge,’ as they called the den.
“Also, they saw the western magpie, which seemed a ‘verry butifull’ bird to them. Also again, on September 5th, they had seen their first blacktail deer, which now, until they got into the Mandan and Yellowstone country, was to outnumber the whitetail, which they called the ‘common deer,’ because they never had seen any other sort. On one day, September 17th, Lewis and his men killed two blacktail, eight ‘fallow’ deer, and five ‘common’ deer. Gass—who by now has been elected sergeant to take poor Floyd’s place—in hisJournalsays they killed thirteen common deer, two blacktailed, three buffalo, and a ‘goat’ that day—not a half bad day, that, eh? Don’t you wish we’d been along?
“But Gass in his book also says something I want you to remember, for it may help explain the ‘fallow’ deer which Clark mentions, and which I don’t understand at all. Gass says: ‘There is another species of deer in this country, with small horns and long tails. The tail of one we killed was 18 inches long.’ Now that precisely coincides with the ‘fantail’ deer which some old-time hunters of my acquaintance saythey have killed in the Black Hills country, though scientists say there never was any fantail deer. Our men were now right east of the Black Hills. For myself, I am convinced there was a fantail deer, and that it has far more rights as a species than the dozen or more ‘species’ of bears which our Washington scientists keep on finding.
“But even this is not all I am trying to get into your minds about this country where our lost hunter Shannon was wandering alone. They were getting all sorts of elk, catfish, and beaver, from the last of August on, but better here—on September 5th they saw both ‘goats’ and wild turkeys on the same day. Did you know that wild turkeys ranged so far north? Well, they at that time overlapped the range of the buffalo, the elk, the blacktailed deer, the badger, the antelope, the prairie dog, and the magpie.
“And in this hunting paradise, they killed on one day, September 8th, two buffalo, one large elk, one small elk, four deer, three turkeys, and a squirrel. All gone now, even almost all the prairie dogs and maybe the magpies; and we haven’t seen any young wild geese on our trip, either. But now, following out the record of these men, we can see what a wonderfulhunting country they had been in, almost every day from St. Louis, especially here, where the lower country began to blend with the high Plains and their game animals. Great days, boys—great days! Alas! that they are gone for you and me forever.”
“You’re getting off the track, Uncle Dick,” said John, critically, just now, as the former concluded his long talk on the game animals.
“Why, what do you mean?”
“While Shannon was lost, and while they were all having such good luck hunting, they at last had found their Sioux and got them in for a council. That was under an oak tree, at the mouth of the Jacque, or James, River, on August 29th. Old man Dorion had found his son Pierre, who was trading among the Sioux, it says. Well, they got five chiefs and about seventy others, and they all went into council.”
“Oak tree, did you say, John? Oak tree this far north?” Jesse was particular.
“Yes, sir, oak tree—lots of them all through here then. Clark tells how the deer and elk ate the acorns, and how fond they were of them. Didn’t you notice that?”
“Well, let’s push off and run up to the old council ground,” said Rob, who was alwaysfor getting forward. “It can’t be more than a few hours’ run, for we don’t stop at any towns, you know.”
They did this, and spent some time studying the spot, so that they could believe they were on the very council ground where Lewis and Clark first met the Sioux, below the Calumet Bluff, on the “Butifull Plain near the foot of the high land which rises with a gradual assent near this Bluff.” At least a trace of the old abundance of the timber could be seen. They consulted theirJournaland argued for a long time.
“This is where they sent out the two men to hunt for the lost man Shannon,” said Rob. “And here is where our captains made their big treaty speeches with the Sioux and gave them medals and the D.S.O., and the Congressional Medal and things. They had a lot of government ‘Good Indian’ certificates all ready to fill in, and it peeved them when one of the chiefs handed back his certificate and said he didn’t care for it, but would rather have some whiskey.
“Those Sioux must have been a surly bunch,” said Rob. “But Captain Lewis impressed them very much, and Captain Clark let down his long red hair and astonished them, and everybodyfed them and gave them presents; and they appointed young Mr. Dorion a commissioner, and gave him a flag, and told him to bring about a peace between all these tribes—the Sioux, Omahas, Pawnees, Poncas, Otoes, and Missouris—and to try to get chiefs of each tribe to go down the river and to Washington, to see the Great Father. And theJournalkept them good and busy, setting down the names of the different bands of the Sioux and telling how they looked.”
John grinned, and pointed to the page. “‘The Warriers are Verry much deckerated with Paint Porcupine quils and feathers, large leagins and mockersons, all with buffalow robes of Different Colors, the Squars wore Peticoats and a White Buffalow roabe with the black hare turned back over their necks and Sholders.’ I’ll say they had plenty to do, writing and hunting and making speeches. It wasn’t any pleasure party, when you come right down to it, now!”
“We haven’t found George Shannon yet,” interrupted Jesse, dryly.
“Give us time!” answered Rob. “I vote to stay here all night. I can see the blue smokes of their council fires, and see the men dancing, and the painted Indians sitting around, and thegreat council pipe passing—red pipestone, with eagle feathers on the stem; and meat hanging in camp, and the squaws cooking, dogs yelping, drums going. Oh, by Jove! Oh, by Jove! Those were the things to make you sit up late at night! I wish we’d been along.”
“Wearealong!” said Uncle Dick, soberly. “If you can see those stirring scenes, we are along. So, Rob, as you say, we’ll pitch our camp and dream, for at least a day, of our own wonderful America when it was young.”
John and Jesse were busy clearing a place for the tent. “I want the fire right close up to the tent,” said John, “and we don’t want to burn off either a tent pole or an overhead guy rope.”
“Oh,” rejoined Jesse, the youngest of them all, “I’ll show you how to do that!”
He dug into his war bag and brought out a roll of stout wire. “Run this from the top of the front pole on out, ten or twelve feet, and stretch it over a couple of shear poles. See? That’ll stiffen the tent, and yet you can build a fire right under the wire, and it won’t hurt it any.”
“A good idea, Jesse,” approved their leader as he saw this. “A mighty good idea for cold weather—about as good as your open fireplaceof sheet steel with a stovepipe—open wider in front than behind, and reflecting the heat into the tent. I’ve tried that last invention of yours, Jess, and it works fine in coolish weather. We’ll try it again, maybe.”
“I’m making me a new kind of airplane now,” said Jesse, modestly. “It’s different in some ways. I like to sort of figure things out, that way.”
“That’s good. And to-night, son, I want you to see whether you can’t figure out a nice fat catfish on your set line. We need meat in camp; and that’s about what it’ll have to be, I suppose.”
Thus, talking together of this thing and that, they made their own comfortable camp, spreading down their own buffalo robes on the ground for their beds, on the old council ground of the Sioux. They had a hearty supper and soon were ready to turn in, for the mosquitoes were bad enough, as they found. Rob sat late at night alone by the little fire.
“Come on to bed, Rob,” called Jesse. “What do you see out there, anyway?”
“Indians,” replied Rob. “Sioux in robes and feathers. Two men in uniform coats, one tall and dark, the other tall and with red hair. Don’t you see them, too?”
“
But we haven’t found George Shannon yet,” again insisted Jesse, at their breakfast.
“And you haven’t run your set line yet, Mr. Jess,” reminded Rob; which was enough to cause Jesse to run down to the bank with his mouth full of bacon. He had forgotten all about his fishing at the time. At once they heard him shout in excitement, and joined him on the bank.
“Geewhillikens!” called Jesse. “I got a whale on here now!”
He was playing a fish on his hand line, taking in and giving line as he could, for the fish was strong. It was some time before they could get to see it, and when Jesse at last landed it on the bank he called for his .22 rifle and shot it through the head.
“There!” he said. “I knew I’d find some big game to shoot. Isn’t he a whale? I’ll bet he’ll go twelve pounds. He’s a whiter cat, and a racier, than the big yellows, down below. He looks gamier and better to eat.”
“He goes in the gunny sack for supper,” said Rob. “Do you suppose he’ll keep for three days, a hundred and fifty miles? I shouldn’t wonder if Shannon would enjoy a bite, for he’ll be hungry by that time.”
“It’s a long, long way, up to the Mandans!” John began to sing again. “Six hundred miles. And we’ll have to have gas pretty soon.”
They finished their breakfast, and, with the skill they had gained in many camps together, soon were packed and on their way above the old council camp of the Sioux.
“Buffalo and elk, every way you can look!” exclaimed John. “Elk swimming across the river. Herds of game feeding on the bluff sides! Grouse, foxes, prairie dogs, jack rabbits, pelicans, squirrels, deer, wolves—the boats full of meat all the time, and two or three beaver every night! Now there’s cottonwoods. By and by the river’ll begin to take a straighter shoot north. It’s a long, long way up to the Mandans!”
“And right through the country of those roaming, murdering Sioux!” added Rob.
“Right you are, Rob,” said Uncle Dick. “The Sioux used to hunt and rob as far as Fort Laramie, six hundred miles up the Platte, and on the head of the Jim River in Dakota, andall between. Their homes were where their hats were—and they hadn’t any hats.”
For some days now they threaded their way among the countless islands and sand bars of the great river, until at last they made camp early on the evening of June 9th, near the point which, as closely as they could figure it, was about where the Lewis and Clark bateau lay at the time George Shannon was found wandering on the Plains, alone and ready to despair. This was about thirty miles below the mouth of the White River.
“Well, we’ve got him,” said Jesse, solemnly, “and told him never to leave camp without matches and ammunition and an ax. And that’s that!”
“Time for another catfish, Jesse,” said their leader. “John, you take the .22 and wander along the edge of the bluff. You might see a young jack rabbit. I don’t believe I’d bother the ducks, for that’s against the law and we don’t break laws even when we are not watched. Rob, you and I will make camp—we’ll not need anything but the mosquito bars.”
Inside the hour a shout from Jesse informed them that he had another catfish on his throw line, and soon he had it flopping on the sand. He killed it stone dead by thrusting a stiffstraw back into the brain through the “little hole in its face,” as he called the sinus which leads into the head cavity.
“I throw out my line,” said he, “with a piece of meat or minnow on the hook. Then I stick a stick down in the bank, two or three feet long, and take a half hitch around the top. It acts as a sort of rod and gives when the fish bites. He pulls down and swallows the bait, and the spring of the stick holds him safer than a straight pull would. To skin him, I cut around back of his front side fins and take hold of the skin with my pliers—just slit the hide a little down the sides, and it comes off. These channel cats aren’t bad to eat.”
John joined them before dark, with two half-grown jack rabbits which he had found on the bluffs below. He spoke of the fine view and of the splendid sunset he had seen. Rob was examining the rabbits, each of which had been shot squarely through the eye. “Dead-shot John, the old trapper!” said he. “That’s the way!”
“You didn’t think I’d shoot ’em anywhere but through the head, did you?” John inquired. “No sir, not yet!”
So, with meat in camp, they sat down, still in “verry good sperits,” as John quoted from theJournal.
Now day after day, hurrying hard as they could, they still drove on northward, along the great bends of what began to seem an interminable waterway. One bend, they fancied, they surely identified with the one mentioned in theJournal, which then was thirty miles around and not much over a half a mile across the neck. They reflected that in more than a hundred years the great river in all likelihood had cut through what Clark called the “Narost part,” the necks of dozens of such bends. On the map they identified the Rosebud Indian Reservation to the west. The great Plains country into which they now were advancing seemed wild, lonely, and at times forbidding, and the settlements farther and farther apart. They were in cattle country rather than farming country much of the time.
TheJournalbrought up the second great Sioux council of Lewis and Clark, on the “Teton river”—near Pierre, South Dakota—on the date of September 25th; but so faithful had the motive power of the good shipAdventurerproved, that our party pulled into the most suitable camping spot they could find not too near by, around noon of June 13th.
“Can’t complain,” said Rob, taking off his grease-spattered overalls and wiping his handson a bit of waste. “We’ve slipped a day on our schedule, but from what we now know of this little old river, we are mighty lucky to be here and not down by Council Bluffs, or maybe Kansas City! It’s only a little over three hundred miles now to the Mandans. That’s as far ahead as I can think.”
“And as to rowing and paddling and poling and tracking her this far,” added John, “say, twelve hundred miles from the mouth of the Missouri—whew! It makes my back ache. Seems to me we’ve skipped along.”
“Well, why shouldn’t we?” demanded Jesse. “Those fellows had the finest kind of hunting in the world; over a thousand of miles of it, to here—over four thousand miles of it altogether—not a single day that didn’t have some sport in it, and they killed tons and tons of game. But all that is left for us is water and sand and willows. Ducks and grouse, yes, but we can’t shoot ’em. And I’ve got so I don’t crave to look a catfish in the face.”
Uncle Dick looked at the boys gravely and saw that the monotony of the long voyage was beginning to wear on them.
“Stick her through to the Mandans, fellows,” said he. “We’ll see what we’ll see. But Jesse, how can you complain of being bored whenright now you are standing where Will Clark come pretty near being killed by the Teton Sioux?
“Yes, sir, it was right here that they tried to stop him from going back to the big boat. Then, for the first time, the Redhead Chief drew his sword—they always went into uniform when they had a council on—and Lewis and the men on the boat trained the swivel gun on the band of Sioux who were detaining Clark.
“You see, they had the council awning stretched on a sand bar in the mouth of the river, and the bateau was seventy yards off, anchored. They had sent out for the Sioux to come in, had smoked with them, given them provisions, made speeches to them, given them whisky and tobacco. The Sioux were arrogant, wanted more whisky and tobacco, and when Clark came ashore with only five men they tried to hold him up, grabbing the boat painter and pulling their bows. The second chief, says Clark, was bad, ‘his justures were of such a personal nature I felt Myself Compeled to Draw my Sword.... I felt Myself Warm and Spoke in verry positive terms.’ Which is all he says of a very dangerous scrape.”
“Whyn’t they bust into ’em with the swivel gun?” demanded Jesse. “At seventy yards they’d ’a’ got plenty of ’em.”
“Sure they would. And then maybe the Sioux would never have let them through at all and would have shot into every boat of white men that later came up the river. No, those young men showed courage and good judgment both. They did not know fear, but they did not forget duty, and they were there to make peace among all the tribes along the Missouri.
“President Jefferson knew that country would soon be visited by many of our fur traders, and he didn’t want the boats stopped. Lewis and Clark both knew this.”
“But the Sioux didn’t bluff them,” said Rob, “because Lewis went ashore with only five men, in his turn, and then they all pulled off a dance, and a big talk in a big council tent—it must have been big, for there were seventy Sioux in it, and just those two young American officers. The big pipe was on forked sticks in front of the chief, and under it they had sprinkled swan’s-down, and they all were dressed up to their limit. And though they could have been killed any minute, these two white men had that lot of Indiansfeeding from the hand, as the slang goes, Uncle Dick!”
Uncle Dick nodded, and Rob went on, referring to hisJournal. “And then the big chief said what they had done was O.K., and asked the white men to ‘take pity on them’—which I think is an old Indian term of asking for some more gifts. Anyhow, the upshot was they smoked the peace pipe and ate ‘some of the most Delicate parts of the Dog which was prepared for the fiest and made a Sacrefise to the flag.’ Then they cleared away the floor, built up a fire in the lodge, and ‘about 10 Musitions began playing on Tambereens’—which made a ‘gingling noise.’ The women came in and danced, with staffs decorated with scalps, and everybody sang and everybody promised to be good.”
“Some party!” said Jesse, slangily; but Rob, now excited, went on with the story:
“Poor Clark nearly got sick from lack of sleep. But the next day the Sioux held on to the cable again and wanted to stop the boat till they had more tobacco. Then Lewis told the chiefs they couldn’t bluff him into giving them anything. Clark did give them a little tobacco and told the men not to fire the swivel. Then they ran up a red flag under the white, and thenext Sioux that came aboard they told that those two flags meant peace or war, either way they wanted it, and if they wanted peace, they’d all better go back home and stay there, and not monkey with the buzz saw too long—well, you know, Uncle Dick, they didn’t really say that, but that was what they meant.
“The Sioux followed alongshore and begged tobacco for fifty miles, clean up to the Ree villages, near the mouth of the Cheyenne River. Oh, they found the Sioux, all right; and glad enough they were to get through them, even paying tribute as they had done.”
“That’s a fair statement of the Teton affair,” nodded the leader of the party. “Many a white life that tribe took, in the seventy-five years that were to follow. For the next hundred miles there were either Sioux or Rees pestering and begging and keeping the party uneasy all the time.”
“And I’ll bet they were glad to get to the Rees, too,” commented John. “Those half-Pawnees raised squashes, corn, and beans. But by now, if they had had a good shotgun or so along, they could have killed all sorts of swans, brant and other geese, and ducks, for they were running into the fall migration of the wild fowl. Grouse, too, were mentionedas very numerous. They stuck to big game—it was easy to get meat when you could see a ‘gang of goats’—antelope—swimming the river, and the hills covered with game.”
“Uncle Dick,” resumed Rob, as they again gathered around the map andJournalspread down on the tent floor, “those men must have had some notion of the country, even had some map of it.”
“Yes, they had a map—made by one Evans, the best then to be had, and I suppose made up from the fur traders’ stories. But it was incomplete. Even to-day few maps are anywhere near exactly accurate. For instance, when they came to the Cheyenne River—which, of course, the traders called the Chien, or Dog, River—Clark said that nothing was known of it till a certain Jean Vallé told them that it headed in the Black Hills.
“Of course, it’s all easy now. We know the Black Hills are in the southwest corner of South Dakota, and that the Belle Fourche River of the old cow country runs into the Cheyenne, which flows almost east, into the Missouri. But if Mr. Vallé had not been out to the Black Hills, Lewis and Clark would not have been able to give this information. Then, again, while they were at the Ree village, onOctober 10th, two more Frenchmen came to breakfast, ‘Mr. Tabo and Mr. Gravolin,’ who were already in this country.
“To me, one of the most interesting things is to see the overlapping and blending of all these things—how the turkey once overlapped the antelope and prairie dog; how the Rees, who were only scattered branches of the Pawnees, properly at home away down in Kansas—overlapped the Sioux, who sometimes raided the Pawnees below the Platte.
“And these French traders said the Spaniards sometimes came to the mouth of the Kaw River, and even on the Platte. So there we were, overlapping Spain to the west. And up above, Great Britain was overlapping our claims to the valley of the Columbia and even part of this Missouri Valley. You can see how important this journey was.
“You’ll remember the lower Brulé Sioux Reservation, below us and west of the river. The Cheyenne Reservation is in above here, below the mouth of the Cheyenne River. From there the river takes a pretty straight shoot up into North Dakota. A great game country, a wild cow country, and now a quiet farming country. A bleak, snow-covered, wind-swept waste it then was. And it was winter thatfirst stopped that long, slow, steady, tireless advance of the ‘Corps of Vollenteers.’”
“I see they broke one more private before they got to the Mandans,” said John, running ahead in the pages of the book.
“Yes, that was Newman, who had been found guilty of mutinous expressions. Seventy-five lashes and expulsion from the Volunteers was what the court of nine men gave him. They always were dignified, and they enforced respect from whites and Indians alike.”
“Well,” grumbled Jesse, “it looks to me like there had been a whole lot of people wandering around across this country long before Lewis and Clark got here.”
“Right you are, my boy. The truth is that right across these Plains there went west the first American exploring expedition that ever saw the Rockies. The French nobleman Verendrye, his three sons, and a nephew, not to mention quite a band of Indians, started west across from the Mandan country in 1742. On January 1, 1743, he records his first sight of the Rocky Mountains, which he calls the Shining Mountains—a fine name it is for them, too.
“The Verendrye expedition was the first to cross Wyoming or the Dakotas so far in the west. They came back through the Bad Lands,above here, and Verendrye records in his journal that near a fort of the Arikara Indians he buried a plate of lead, with the arms and inscription of the king. He did this in March, 1743. It always was supposed that this was at or near Fort Pierre, South Dakota. That suspicion was absolutely correct.
“In a little railway pamphlet put out by the Northern Pacific Railway it is stated that on Sunday, February 16, 1913—one hundred and seventy years after Verendrye got back that far east—a school girl playing with some others at the top of a hill scraped the dirt from the end of a plate, which then was exposed about an inch above the ground. She pulled it out. The story said it looked like a range-stove lining. It was eight and a half inches long by six and a half inches wide and an eighth of an inch in thickness. Well, it was discovered to be the old Verendrye lead plate—that’s all!”
“That’s a most extraordinary thing!” said Rob. “Well, anyhow, it shows the value of leaving exploring records. So you couldn’t blame William Clark for writing his name at least twice on the rocks.”
“No, the story of the Verendrye plate is, I think, one of the most curious things I have ever read in regard to early Western history.You never can tell about such things. Well, in any case Verendrye, the first white man who ever saw the Shining Mountains, died in 1749. That was fifty-five years before Lewis and Clark started up the river.
“There is not a hundred miles, or ten miles, or one mile, along all these shores which has not historical value if you and I only knew the story.”
“But it’s a long, long way up to the Mandans still,” began John once more.
His Uncle Dick gayly chided him.
“It’ll not be so long—only a little over three hundred miles from here.”
“If only there were the buffalo!” said Jesse.
“Yes, if only there were the buffalo, and the antelope and the Indians! I’d give a good deal to have lived in those days, my own self. Good night, Jess. Good night, Rob and Frank.”