XII
_FAREWELL TO FORT MANDAN_
On the first day of March preparations began on the building of newboats. The old ones were pried out of the ice, and the whole party wasbusy making elk-skin ropes and pirogues, in burning coal, and inmaking battle-axes to trade for corn. Ducks began to pass up theriver; swans and wild geese were flying north.
Old Chief Le Borgne of the Minnetarees, a giant in stature, a brute atheart, had held aloof all winter in his tepee.
"Foolish people! Stay at home!" he cried.
But strange rumours crept within the walls of the sulky Cyclops.Overcome at last by curiosity Le Borgne came down to the fort.
"Some foolish young men of my nation tell me there is a man among youwho is black. Is that true?"
"It is," answered Clark. "York, come here."
With his one fierce eye, Le Borgne examined York closely. He wet hisfinger and rubbed the skin to see if the black would come off. Notuntil the negro uncovered his head and showed his woolly hair couldthe chief be persuaded that York was not a painted white man.
Convinced against his will, and amazed, Le Borgne arose with a snort,his black hair flying over his brawny shoulders, and stalked out. Ashe passed along, the Indians shrank back. Over the hill came the wailof a demented mother. Many a fair Indian girl had left her scalp atthe door of this Indian Blue-Beard because she preferred some otherlover.
The ice was already honeycombed. Larocque came over for a farewell.
"McTavish is dead," he said.
Lewis and Clark scarcely comprehended the full import of thatannouncement.
At the foot of the mountain in Montreal the great Northwester wasbuilding a palace, fit abode for "the lord of the lakes and theforest," when the summons came in 1804. Up the rivers and lakes theword was carried into the uttermost wilds,--"McTavish is dead." Thusit came to Lewis and Clark, this last news from the outer world.
The meeting at Fort William had been held without him,--McTavish wasdead.
He was the head and front of the Northwest Company. Under the King,Simon McTavish ruled Canada, ruled half of British America, makingHudson's Bay tremble on her northern sea.
The quick wit of the American born of Irish parents belonged toPatrick Gass. While others were struggling toward an idea, Pat hadalready seized it. Brave, observant, of good sense, and hating theBritish, he kept an eye on Larocque.
"Do not trust that Frinchman."
Larocque had a stock of goods to trade. He lingered around FortMandan, and offered to go over the mountains with Lewis and Clark, butthey politely declined. Already Larocque knew of the order at FortWilliam. His own brother-in-law, Quesnel, was to be the companion ofFraser's voyage, and was to leave, like Fraser, his name on the riversof British Columbia.
Then there was trouble with Charboneau. He became independent andimpudent and demanded higher wages. Somebody was tampering withCharboneau. Suddenly flaming with new raiment, gay vests, and yards ofblue and scarlet cloth, he announced:
"I weel not work. I weel not stand guard. I eenterpreteur,--do as Ipleese, return wheen I pleese."
"We can dispense with your services," coolly answered the Captains.Charboneau stepped back, surprised.
Ignoring his presence, preparations were hurried on. The boats, thetroublesome, cracking, warping cottonwood boats, were hauled to thefort and pitched and calked and tinned, until at last they were readyto try the water. No one spoke to the Frenchman, no one noticed him ashe lingered expectantly by.
All the Indian goods were brought out and hung in the open air. Evenat the busiest moments, with every man on the jump, no one askedCharboneau to help. Finding he was about to lose his position, theFrenchman came to Captain Lewis, apologised, and was restored toservice. In a trice Charboneau was back at the skillets, dishing upthe dinner.
The occupants of Fort Mandan had been snow-bound five months when icebegan running in the river. All day long now the busy Indians werecatching buffalo floating by on the high water. The foolish animals,trying to cross the thin ice, broke through. Others floated away onbig cakes that were certain, sooner or later, to launch them intoeternity.
The patient, devoted women, too, were in evidence. Slipping out oftheir leather smocks, they plunged naked into the icy current tosecure the floating driftwood for fuel. Across the snow long lines ofsquaws came dragging home the drift.
The hammers of Shields and Bratton rang merrily at the anvils. Boxeswere made and hooped and ironed, to go down in the big bateau that wastoo unwieldy to carry further.
In those stout boxes were horns of the mountain ram, unknown as yet toscience, horns of elk and deer, rare skins, robes and Indian dresses;bow, arrows, and a shield for the President, on which Old Black Cathad spent months of patient carving; samples of the red Arikara corn;sixty-seven specimens of earths, salts, and minerals, and sixtyspecimens of plants, all carefully labelled; seeds, insects, theskeleton of the big fish from the hilltop, stuffed antelopes andLewis's pelican, a live prairie dog in a wicker cage, a live prairiehen and four magpies. A new geography was there, a map of the Missouriextending out to the mystic mountains, drawn from Indian description,to be presented by Jefferson to Congress.
In these boxes, too, went letters. There was one of several thousandwords from Lewis to his mother. Captain Clark's first and best letterwas to his brother at the Point of Rock; with it he enclosed a mapand sketches of Indians. Another was to Major Croghan at LocustGrove, with seeds of several kinds of grapes for his sister Lucy.
With the bateau went also the famous Mandan report of Lewis toJefferson, and Clark's letter to his soldier friend, William HenryHarrison, then Governor of the Indian Territory at Vincennes. Othermissives went to Ohio, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts,Pennsylvania,--wherever a man had a mother at the hearthstone waitingto hear of her distant boy. Saddest of all was the news to Mill Creek,the home of Sergeant Floyd. Part of Clark's journal was transmitted byletter to the President and part was enclosed in a separate tin box,"to multiply the chances of saving something."
The Mandan treasures, with dispatches and presents from the Indians,went down by water to the Gulf and thence by sea to Washington.
"I have little doubt but they will be fired on by the Sioux," saysLewis in his letter, "but they have pledged themselves to us that theywill not yield while there is one of them living."
At five o'clock on Sunday afternoon, April 7, 1805, the barge leftFort Mandan for St. Louis with ten men. With it went also Brave Ravenof the Arikaras, to visit his Great Father, the President.
At the same moment that the barge left the fort, six small canoes andthe two pirogues shot up river, carrying thirty-one men and Sacajaweawith her child.
"This little fleet, although not quite so respectable as those ofColumbus or Captain Cook, is still viewed by us with as much pleasureas those famed adventurers ever beheld theirs," said Lewis, "and Idare say with quite as much anxiety for their safety and preservation.We are now about to penetrate a country at least two thousand miles inwidth, on which the foot of civilised man has never trodden.
"Entertaining as I do the most confident hope of succeeding in avoyage which has formed a darling project of mine for ten years, I canbut esteem this moment of our departure as among the happiest of mylife."