THEY CROSS THE CONTINENT.

On the 13th of June, while scouting in advance of his party, Captain Lewis saw, in the distance, a thin cloudlike mist rising up out of the plain. To him it was like the guiding column which led the Israelites in the desert. Not doubting that it was the Great Fall, which the Mandans had told him about, and of which he was in search, Captain Lewis hastened toward it. He soon heard it roar distinctly, and in a few hours more stood on the brink of the cataract itself. The Indians had told him truly. Not even the eagle's nest was wanting to make their description complete.

He was the first white man who had ever stood there, and he calls it a sublime sight.

Thirteen miles of cascades and rapids! At headlong speed the Missouri rushes down a rocky gorge, through which it has torn its way, now leaping over a precipice, now lost to sight in the depths of the cañon,[1] a thousand feet below the plain, or again, as with recovered breath, breaking away from these dark gulfs into the light of clay and bounding on again. No wonder the discoverer stood forgetful of all else but this wondrous work of nature!

Much valuable time was lost in getting the boats and baggage round these falls. To pass them was impossible. It was necessary to build carriages on which the boats were dragged by hand a distance of eighteen miles, before they could be launched again.

But after all this had been done the boats were found unsuited to the navigation of the river above them, and so new ones had to be hewed out of the trees growing on the banks, which could better withstand the buffeting of the rocks. In these the party again embarked, and on the 19th of July found themselves just entering a deep gorge of the mountains, five miles long, through which the river wound its way between walls of rock that rose a thousand feet above their heads. They named this awful cañon the Gate of the Rocky Mountains.

Boat navigation was now nearly at an end. Every day the scouts were sent out in search of roving Indians from whom they might get horses and guides to cross the mountains. But no Indians could be found. A well-beaten trail had been followed high up into the hills, but lost again among defiles so narrow and stony, that when the scouts came back they said no horseman could go through them. So these great mountains, which so long had been to them a guide and landmark, now seemed sternly forbidding their farther progress.

Yet at all risks horses and guides must be had. Telling his men he would not come back till he had found them, Captain Lewis set out on his forlorn search, knowing that on him depended the success or failure of the expedition. The men remained encamped where he left them.[2]

While engaged in this search, Captain Lewis, on the 12th of August, reached the highest source of the Missouri. At three thousand miles from its mouth it dwindled to a mountain brook. Passing thence over the dividing ridge, he came upon the waters of what proved to be the Columbia. So within a few hours he drank of the waters of both. Following the stream down the mountain, with fresh hope, it led him to a village of the Shoshones or Snake Indians.[3]

No shipwrecked wanderer on an unknown sea ever looked with more eagerness on a rescuing sail than Lewis did upon this uncouth and squalid habitation in the wilderness. The Indians would not believe he had crossed the mountains on foot and without guides. At length, however, some of them agreed to go back with him, and these having found his story true, horses and guides were furnished for the white men's use.

Thus equipped, the party began the passage of the mountains, following the obscure windings of a trail known only to the Indians themselves. They found it a hard march. Sometimes it led them through a wild cañon strewed with stones for miles together. Sometimes the caravan would be painfully climbing some slippery height, or skirting the edge of a precipice where a single false step would have flung horse and rider headlong to the bottom of the ravine.

But these active little horses, which the Indians rode without saddle or bridle, unshod and ill-fed as they were, did their work to the admiration of the white men. Though they frequently slipped and fell with their burdens, they would quickly scramble to their feet again with the agility of mountain goats.

Almost a month was thus spent in getting through the mountains. Snow fell, and water froze among those rocky heights. On some days five miles would be the most they could advance. On others they could scarcely go forward at all. The plenty they had enjoyed in the plains gave way to scarcity or worse. Seldom could the hunters bring in any thing but a pheasant, a squirrel, or a hawk, to men famishing with hunger and worn down by a hard day's tramp. The daily food mostly consisted of berries and dried fish, of which every man got a mouthful, but none a full meal. When a horse gave out he was killed and eaten with avidity. The men grew sick and dispirited under incessant labor for which want of nourishing food rendered them every day more and more incapable. In short, every suffering which cold, hunger, and fatigue could bring, was borne by these explorers.

Ragged, half-starved, and foot-sore, but upheld by the courage of their leaders, the explorers came out on the other side of the mountains less like conquerors than fugitives.

Their guides led them on, past many streams, till they came to one on which they were told they might safely embark. It was the Kooskooskee. This was about four hundred miles from the place where they had left their boats on the other side of the mountains. They had struck one of the southern affluents of the Columbia.

Here the party built canoes in which they began to descend the river, leaving their horses with the Nez Percés Indians[4] to keep against their return. In three days this stream led into a larger one to which they gave the name of Lewis River. In seven, they reached the junction of a larger branch coming from the north, which they named the Clarke. They were now fairly afloat upon the great river itself. Down this they paddled till they came to the point where the Columbia in a series of mad leaps breaks through the lofty Cascade chain.[5] These too were safely passed.

It was now late in October. All along the explorers had found camps pitched on the borders of the rivers, for the Indians of this region lived wholly on salmon, like the tribes Mackenzie had fallen in with on Frazer River. Wherever the river was broken by rapids a noted fishing-place would be found, so the travellers were now in a land of plenty; but the farther they fell down, the more squalid the Indians became, and of meaner looks and stature. Had these people shown themselves unfriendly, Lewis and Clarke might never have reached the ocean, for the valley was everywhere very populous.

Since leaving the cascades, evidences of approach to the sea multiplied. Up to that point no fire-arms had been seen among the Indians. Many now had guns, and showed themselves more and more presuming toward the white men. They traversed the river in great war canoes, having images set up at the stem and stern, like the vikings of old. But our men did not fear them. They were already more than half Indians themselves in dress, looks and habits of life. They had learned to eat dog-meat, and to make their beds wherever the night found them.

Soon the tides were observed. On the 7th of November the roar of the breakers was heard in the distance. They had reached their goal at last.

A most inhospitable welcome awaited the explorers. They had struck the coast in the rainy season. The floods drove them from their first camp on the north side, to the south side of the river, where they set to work building themselves winter quarters. The little clump of cabins was named Fort Clatsop, from the tribe on whose land it stood, with the flag the explorers had brought waving over it. Here the winter was passed.

In March, 1806, the explorers began their journey home. At the Falls of the Columbia they bought horses which took them to the place where their own had been left. From here they travelled on an east line through the mountains till the head of Clarke's River was struck. The party was then divided. One band under Lewis crossed the mountains to the head-waters of the Maria River, while the other, under the lead of Clarke, passed them lower down, so reaching the sources of the Yellowstone, down which they floated to the place of rendezvous.