XXVII
_THE HOME STRETCH_
In the distance there was a gleam of coloured blankets where thebeehive huts of the Mandan village lay. A firing of guns and theblunderbuss brought Black Cat to the boats.
"Come and eat." And with the dignity of an old Roman, the chiefextended his hand.
"Come and eat," was the watchword of every chieftain on the Missouri.Even the Sioux said, "Come and eat!"
Hospitable as Arabs, they spread the buffalo robe and brought thepipe. While the officers talked with the master of the lodge, thesilent painstaking squaws put the kettles on the fire, and slaughteredthe fatted dog for the honoured guests.
"How many chiefs will accompany us to Washington?" That was the firstinquiry of the business-pushing white men. Through Jussaume theIndians answered.
"I would go," said the Black Cat, "but de Sioux--"
"De Sioux will certainly kill us," said Le Borgne of the Minnetarees."Dey are waiting now to intercept you on de river. Dey will cut youoff."
"We stay at home. We listen to your counsel," piped up Little Cherry."But dey haf stolen our horses. Dey haf scalp our people."
"We must fight to protect ourselves," added the Black Cat. "We live inpeace wit' all nation--'cept de Sioux!"
In vain Captain Clark endeavoured to quiet their apprehensions. "Weshall not suffer the Sioux to injure one of our red children."
"I pledge my government that a company of armed men shall guard you onyour return," added Lewis.
At this point Jussaume reported that Shahaka, or Big White, in hiswish to see the President, had overcome his fears. He would go toWashington.
Six feet tall, of magnificent presence, with hair white and coarse asa horse's mane, Shahaka, of all the chiefs, was the one to carry tothe States the tradition of a white admixture in the Mandan blood."The handsomest Injun I iver saw," said Patrick Gass.
Arrangements for departure were now made as rapidly as possible.Presents of corn, beans, and squashes, more than all the boats couldcarry, were piled around the white men's camp.
The blacksmith's tools were intrusted to Charboneau for the use of theMandans. The blunderbuss, given to the Minnetarees, was rolled away totheir village with great exultation.
"Now let the Sioux come!" It was a challenge and a refuge.
The iron corn mill was nowhere to be seen. For scarcely had Lewis andClark turned their backs for the upper Missouri before it had beenbroken into bits to barb the Indian arrows.
Sacajawea looked wistfully. She, too, would like to visit the whiteman's country.
"We will take you and your wife down if you choose to go," saidCaptain Clark to Charboneau.
"I haf no acquaintance, no prospect to mak' a leeving dere," answeredthe interpreter. "I mus' leeve as I haf done."
"I will take your son and have him educated as a white child shouldbe," continued the Captain.
Charboneau and Sacajawea looked at one another and at their beautifulboy now nineteen months old, prattling in their midst.
"We would be weeling eef de child were weaned," slowly spakeCharboneau. "Een wan year, he be ole enough to leaf he moder. I dentak' eem to you eef you be so friendly to raise eem as you t'inkproper."
"Bring him to me in one year. I will take the child," said CaptainClark.
Captain Lewis paid Charboneau five hundred dollars, loaded Sacajaweawith what gifts he could, and left them in the Mandan country.
All was now ready for the descent to St. Louis. The boats, lashedtogether in pairs, were at the shore. Big White was surrounded by hisfriends, seated in a circle, solemnly smoking. The women wept aloud;the little children trembled and hid behind their mothers.
More courageous than any, Shahaka immediately sent his wife and sonwith their baggage on board. The interpreter, Jussaume, with his wifeand two children, accompanied them. Yes, Madame Jussaume was going toWashington!
Sacajawea, modest princess of the Shoshones, heroine of the greatexpedition, stood with her babe in arms and smiled upon them from theshore. So had she stood in the Rocky Mountains pointing out the gates.So had she followed the great rivers, navigating the continent.
Sacajawea's hair was neatly braided, her nose was fine and straight,and her skin pure copper like the statue in some old Florentinegallery. Madonna of her race, she had led the way to a new time. Tothe hands of this girl, not yet eighteen, had been intrusted the keythat unlocked the road to Asia.
Some day upon the Bozeman Pass, Sacajawea's statue will stand besidethat of Clark. Some day, where the rivers part, her laurels will viewith those of Lewis. Across North America a Shoshone Indian Princesstouched hands with Jefferson, opening her country.
All the chiefs had gathered to see the boats start. "Stay but onemoment," they said.
Clark stepped back. Black Cat handed him a pipe, as if forbenediction. The solemn smoke-wreaths soon rolled upward.
"Tell our Great Fader de young men will remain at home and not mak'war on any people, except in self-defence."
"Tell de Rickara to come and visit. We mean no harm."
"Tak' good care dis chief. He will bring word from de Great Fader."
It was a promise and a prayer. Strong chiefs turned away withmisgiving and trepidation as they saw Shahaka depart with the whitemen.
Dropping below their old winter quarters at Fort Mandan, Lewis andClark saw but a row of pickets left. The houses lay in ashes,destroyed by an accidental fire. All were there for the homeward pullbut Coalter. He had gone back with Hancock and Dickson, twoadventurers from Boone's settlement, to discover the Yellowstone Park.
On the fourth day out three Frenchmen were met approaching the Mandannation with the message,--
"Seven hundert Sioux haf pass de Rickara to mak' war on de Mandan an'Minnetaree." Fortunately, Shahaka did not understand, and no one toldhim.
The Arikara village greeted the passing boats. Lewis, still lame,requested Clark to go up to the village. Like children confessingtheir misdeeds the Arikaras began:
"We cannot keep the peace! Our young men follow the Sioux!"
The wild Cheyennes, with their dogs and horses and handsome leathernlodges, were here on a trading visit, to exchange with the Arikarasmeat and robes for corn and beans. They were a noble race, of straightlimbs and Roman noses, unaccustomed to the whites, shy and cautious.
"We war against none but the Sioux, with whom we have battled forever," they said.
Everywhere there was weeping and mourning. "My son, my son, he hasbeen slain by the Sioux!"
Between the lands of the warring nations surged seas of buffalo, whereto-day are the waving bonanza wheat fields of North Dakota.
From an eminence Clark looked over the prairies. "More buffalo thanever I have seen before at one time,"--and he had seen many. "If it benot impossible to calculate the moving multitude that darkens theplains, twenty thousand would be no exaggerated estimate."
They were now well into the country of the great Sioux IndianConfederacy. Arms and ammunition were inspected.
The sharp air thrilled and filled them with new vigour. No wonder theSioux were never still. The ozone of the Arctic was in their veins,the sweeping winds drove them, the balsamic prairie was their bed, thesky their canopy. They never shut themselves up in stuffy mud huts, asdid the Mandans; they lived in tents. Unrestrained, unregenerate,there was in them the fire of the Six Nations, of King Philip and ofPontiac. Tall, handsome, finely formed, agile, revengeful,intelligent, capable,--they loved their country and they hatedstrangers. So did the Greeks. An effeminate nation would have fallenbefore them as did the Roman before the Goth, but in the Anglo-Saxonthey met their master.
"Whoop-ah-ho-o-oh!"
As anticipated, Black Buffalo and his pirate band were on the hills.Whether that fierce cry meant defiance or greeting no man could tell.
"Whoop-ah-ho-o-oh!"
The whole band rushed down to the shore, and even out into the water,shouting invitations to land, and waving from the sand-banks.
But too fres
h in memory was the attempt to carry off Captain Clark.Jubilant, hopeful, and full of the fire of battle as the white menwere, yet no one wished to test the prowess of the Sioux.
Unwilling to venture an interview, the boats continued on their way.Black Buffalo shook his war bonnet defiantly, and returning to thehill smote the earth three times with the butt of his rifle, theregistration of a mighty oath against the whites.
Leaving behind them a wild brandishing of bows, arrows, and tomahawks,and an atmosphere filled with taunts, insults, and imprecations, theboats passed out of sight.
Wafted on the wind followed that direful "Whoop-ah-ho-o-oh!" endingwith the piercing shrill Indian yell that for sixty years froze theearliest life blood of Minnesota and Dakota.
Here in the land of the Teton Sioux was to be planted the future FortRice, where exactly sixty years after Lewis and Clark, there crossedthe Missouri one of the most powerful, costly, and best equippedexpeditions ever sent out against hostile Indians,--four thousandcavalry, eight hundred mounted infantry, twelve pieces of artillery,three hundred government teams, three hundred beef steers, and fifteensteamboats to carry supplies,--to be joined here on the Fourth ofJuly, 1864, by an emigrant train of one hundred and sixty teams andtwo hundred and fifty people,--the van guard of Montana settlement.The Sioux were defeated in the Bad Lands, and the emigrants werecarried safely through to Helena, where they and their descendantslive to-day.
Already sweeping up the Missouri, Lewis and Clark met advancingempire. Near Vermilion River, James Aird was camping with a license totrade among the Sioux.
"What is the news from St. Louis?"
There on the borders of a future great State, Lewis and Clark firstheard that Burr and Hamilton had fought a duel and Hamilton waskilled; that three hundred American troops were cantoned atBellefontaine, a new log fort on the Missouri; that Spain had taken aUnited States frigate on the Mediterranean; that two British ships ofwar had fired on an American ship in the port of New York, killing theCaptain's brother.
Great was the indignation in the United States against Jefferson andthe impressment of American seamen.
"The money spent for Louisiana would have been much better used inbuilding fighting ships."
"The President had much better be protecting our rights than cuttingup animals and stuffing the skins of dead raccoons."
"Where is our national honour? Gone, abandoned on the Mississippi."
And these _coureurs_ on the Mississippi heard that the conflictforeseen by Napoleon, when he gave us Louisiana, was raging now in allits fury, interdicting the commerce of the world.
To their excited ears the river rushed and rocked, the earth rumbled,with the roar of cannon. To themselves Lewis and Clark seemed a verysmall part of the forces that make and unmake nations,--and yet thatexpedition meant more to the world than the field of Waterloo!
The next noon, on ascending the hill of Floyd's Bluff they found theIndians had opened the grave of their comrade. Reverently it wasfilled again.
Home from the buffalo hunt in the plains of the Nebraska, the Omahaswere firing guns to signal their return to gather in their harvest ofcorn, beans, and pumpkins. Keel boats, barges, and bateaux cameglistening into view,--Auguste Chouteau with merchandise to trade withthe Yanktons, another Chouteau to the Platte, a trader with two men tothe Pawnee Loupes, and Joseph La Croix with seven men bound for theOmahas.
Through the lessening distance Clark recognised on one of the bargeshis old comrade, Robert McClellan, the wonderful scout of Wayne'sarmy, who had ridden on many an errand of death. Since Wayne's victoryMcClellan had been a ranger still, but now the Indians were quietingdown,--all except Tecumseh.
"The country has long since given you up," he told the Captain. "Wehave word from Jefferson to seek for news of Lewis and Clark. Thegeneral opinion in the United States is that you are lost in theunfathomable depths of the continent. But President Jefferson hashopes. The last heard of you was at the Mandan villages."
With a laugh they listened to their own obituaries. On the same bargewith McClellan was Gravelines with orders from Jefferson to instructthe Arikaras in agriculture, and Dorion to help make way through theSioux.
"Brave Raven, the Arikara chief, died in Washington," said Gravelines."I am on my way to them with a speech from the President and thepresents which have been made to the chief."
How home now tugged at their heart strings! Eager to be on the way,they bade farewell to McClellan.
Down, down they shot along, wind, current, and paddle in their favour,past shores where the freebooting Kansas Indians robbed the traders,past increasing forests of walnut, elm, oak, hickory.
The men were now reduced to a biscuit apiece. Wild turkeys gobbled onshore, but the party paused not a moment to hunt.
On the twentieth a mighty shout went up. They heard the clank of cowbells, and saw tame cattle feeding on the hills of Charette, the homeof Daniel Boone. With cheers and firing of guns they landed at thevillage.
"We are indeet astonished," exclaimed the joyful habitants, graspingtheir hands. "You haf been given up for det long tam since." The menwere scattered among the families for the night, honoured guests ofCharette.
"Plaintee tam we wish ourself back on ole San Loui'," said Cruzatte tohis admiring countrymen.
To their surprise Lewis and Clark found new settlements all the waydown from Charette. September 21, firing a tremendous salute from theold stone tower behind the huts, all St. Charles paid tribute to theHomeric heroes who had wandered farther than Ulysses and slain moremonsters than Hercules.
Just above the junction of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers loomedthe fresh mud chimneys of the new log Fort Bellefontaine, ColonelThomas Hunt in command, and Dr. Saugrain, surgeon, appointed byJefferson.
The Colonel's pretty little daughter, Abby Hunt, looked up inadmiration at Lewis and Clark, and followed all day these "Indianwhite men" from the north. Forty years after she told the story ofthat arrival. "They wore dresses of deerskin, fringed and worked withporcupine quills, something between a military undress frock coat andan Indian shirt, with leggings and moccasins, three-cornered cockedhats and long beards."
Standing between the centuries in that log fort on the Missouri,pretty little Abby Hunt herself was destined to become historic, asthe wife of Colonel Snelling and the mother of the first white childborn in Minnesota.
After an early breakfast with Colonel Hunt, the expedition set out forthe last stretch homeward. They rounded out of the Missouri into theMississippi, and pulled up to St. Louis at noon, Tuesday, September23, 1806, after an absence of nearly two years and a half.