CHAPTER XV

THROUGH THE ROCKIES TO THE PACIFIC

Ascending the Jefferson. Reaching the Great Divide.

Some

friendly Indians. Sacajawea meets old acquaintances. Hardships and disappointments. Struggling across the mountains. Among the Nez Percés. On toward the sea. Passing the cataracts of the Columbia. The first glimpse of the sea.

It was on the 30th of July that they began the laborious ascent of the Jefferson, or true Missouri. Captain Lewis went ahead to find some Indians and gain information as to the way across the mountains. The others followed, struggling with rapids and shoals, often wading through the water over slippery stones and dragging the boats, and often puzzled as to the right course by the bewildering forks of the stream. On August 11 Lewis saw a Shoshone on horseback, whom he tried vainly to attract by holding up a looking-glass and

beads and making friendly signs. Lewis was now traveling near the base of the Bitter Root Mountains, hoping to find an Indian trail leading to a pass. As he kept on, the Jefferson grew smaller and smaller, until it dwindled to a brook, and one of the men, with a foot on each side, "thanked God that he had lived to bestride the Missouri."

They had then found and were following an Indian trail, and at last they came to a gap in the mountains where they drank from the actual source of the great Missouri River, which they had ascended from its mouth.

The Indian trail brought them to the top of a ridge commanding snow-topped mountains to the westward. "The ridge on which they stood formed the dividing line between the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The descent was much steeper than on the eastern side, and at the distance of threequarters of a mile they reached a bold creek of cold, clear water running west, and stopped to taste for the first time the waters of the Columbia."

In

These were the first white men to cross the "Continental Divide" in our Northwest. 1792-1793 Alexander Mackenzie had crossed British America to the Pacific.

Lewis and his men kept on to the westward and finally made friends with some Indians.

MAP OF LEWIS AND CLARK PASS

They smoked the pipe of peace and partook another proof that they were

of a salmon,

on the Pacific side of the mountains. The chief promised horses but afterward became suspicious of some treachery, and, between the chief's changes of mind and scanty food, Lewis's stay was made most uncomfortable. But at last he and the Indians, with horses,

started back to meet Captain Clark, who all this time had been laboriously ascending the Jefferson with the boats.

On August 17, after retracing his course across the divide, Captain Lewis and his party found Captain Clark. As they approached each other the faithful Sacajawea, who was with Clark, began to dance with joy, pointing to the Indians and sucking her fingers to show that they were of her tribe. Presently an Indian woman came to her, and they embraced each other with the most tender affection. "They had been companions in childhood; in the war with the Minnetarees they had both been taken prisoners in the same battle; they had shared and softened the rigors of their captivity till one of them had escaped from their enemies with scarce a hope of ever seeing her friend rescued from their hands."

It was arranged that Clark, with eleven men and with tools, should cross the divide to the village of the Shoshonees. He was then to lead his men down the Columbia and, when he found navigable water, to begin to build canoes.

Lewis was to remain and bring the baggage to the Shoshone village. At the council held here the Indians promised to bring more horses, and showed great astonishment at the arms and dress of the men, the "strange looks" of the negro, and the air gun.

On August 20 Clark reached the Shoshone village, which since Lewis's visit had been moved two miles up the little river on which it was situated. Here he heard most discouraging accounts of the wild country before him and the difficulty of reaching navigable water by which they could descend to the sea. These stories proved too true. Clark passed the junction of the Salmon and Lemhi rivers, where Salmon City, Idaho, is now situated, and he gave the name of Lewis River to the stream below the junction.

The traveling over rocky mountain paths was most trying, and instead of the abundance of game which they had seen in Montana and Dakota there was an absence of deer and other animals. They were obliged to depend largely on such salmon as they could catch, or buy