September, 1805
The Corps of Discovery followed Old Toby into the high, rugged foothills of the Rocky Mountains where there were no trails to follow. The men struggled through dense, thorny underbrush that snagged their buckskin clothing and scratched their faces and hands as they climbed hillsides as steep as the roof of a house. The passage, narrow and filled with stones, bruised the hooves of their horses because they had no horseshoes.
York’s feet became so sore that Captain Clark unloaded the packsaddle of one horse and distributed the load to the other horses so York could ride.
At last they reached the peak of the first mountain of the foothills and began to descend into a wide valley. Once there, their passage was relatively easy for the next three days—but the men kept looking with trepidation at the massive mountains still ahead of them, their peaks hidden high in the clouds. This forbidding range was a barrier that must be endured—crossing it was essential to the success of their mission. Each man considered the challenges ahead, imagining what might be demanded of him.
Ordway, usually optimistic, was worried. “I can’t imagine such a large group of men successfully crossing those mountains with tons of supplies.”
“I can’t either,” Colter replied, sharing his friend’s concern. “But the captains haven’t done anything stupid or led us wrong yet. I wouldn’t bet against them.”
At the evening campfire, Old Toby approached the captains, who had finished eating their dried venison stew. “Tomorrow we will begin the hardest part of our journey over the high mountains,” he told them through Sacagawea and the translation chain. He traced an enormous mountain in the air with his finger.
Not long after setting out the next morning, one of horses fell backwards because of the steep angle of the climb. Men hurried to recover the supplies that had broken loose from the pack saddle and quickly rearranged the animal’s load as it struggled to find firm footing again. Fallen tree trunks created serious obstacles, and the men often had to stop to lift them out of the way. At other times the brush was so thick they had to cut paths for the horses—a time-consuming job. At times the ascent was so steep and rocky that the weaker pack horses and colts sometimes lost their footing, stumbling and even falling. Simply moving ahead was fatiguing, and the expedition covered only five miles that entire day.
Hunters soon found that game animals were practically nonexistent in the mountains. They killed only a few pheasants—meager fare that sent the expedition to bed hungry. To make matters worse, constant rain made the night uncomfortable. The next day they battled the rugged terrain again, marveling that some fir trees were one-hundred-fifty feet tall. They ate the last of their salt pork and once again went to bed hungry.
“Why don’t we kill one of the colts?” Collins suggested to Ordway. “We’re working too damned hard to go hungry. We’re going to be too weak to do anything if this continues.”
“The captains want to wait one more day to see if our hunters find game before we do that,” Ordway said. “We have to conserve our supply of food as much as possible if we want to make it over these mountains.”
When they camped that night, they were wet, hungry, and tired to the bone. The expedition had traveled only eleven miles that day. Their horses, too, were weak and listless.
“It’s time to kill one of the colts,” Lewis decided. “We can’t go on like this.”
The colt provided a skimpy meal for more than thirty adults and Seaman, but it was enough to keep them going. The next day’s travel took them down to a river where they found a band of four hundred Flathead Indians with about five hundred horses who were coming east across the mountains. Eighty of the men were warriors, who greeted the Corps with friendship, putting white robes over the captains’ shoulders and smoking the pipe of peace with them. The Flatheads had stout physiques, and their complexions were lighter than other Indian tribes the Corps had met. They were well-dressed in the skins of mountain goats and buffalo robes.
“Drouillard, take Old Toby and see if you can communicate with them,” Lewis instructed.
The Flathead Indians were allies of the Shoshones, and the presence of Old Toby and Sacagawea was fortunate. Translations still took a convoluted path, but the captains were able to communicate with them. Their language had a sort of gurgling sound because they spoke much through their throats. Captain Lewis recorded a vocabulary of their language to the extent he could. Because of the very different language, some of the soldiers wondered if this tribe could be related to the rumored Indians of Welsh descent they had heard so much about back home.
This tribe had never seen white men before, and York was the center of attention as the first black man they had ever seen. This large group was on its way to join Cameahwait’s band at Three Forks, where they would go together for a great buffalo hunt on the plains.
Lewis gave the Indians presents and bought eleven horses from them for only a few articles of merchandise. The Flatheads even traded fresh horses for the Corps’ worn-out Shoshone horses. The Corps of Discovery now had thirty-nine horses and three colts for packing, riding, or food if necessary.
The Flathead chief told Lewis that the Corps of Discovery must cross four more mountains before reaching a place where other men with hair on their faces live. These Indians helped the expedition in every way they could, selling them pack saddles and ropes for cheap prices. Finally, the Flatheads departed for the Missouri River and their annual buffalo hunt.
When the Corps continued, now with a total of forty horses, falling snow covered the men’s moccasins. Some of them wrapped their feet with rags, and their fingers on their rifles ached from the cold. There was nothing to eat except berries and a little corn, which they parched. The area they were passing through was filled with tall, green pines and balsam trees that contrasted sharply with the whiteness of the snow-clad land. They noticed that the bark of some pine trees had been peeled away, and Toby explained that Indians eat the inside of the bark in the spring. The men rejoiced when the hunters returned with a dozen pheasants and, almost miraculously it seemed to the men, a deer and an elk.
“God will provide!” one of the deeply religious men proclaimed, and he bowed in prayer to give thanks.
That day as they climbed to higher elevations, the falling snow turned into a pelting, cold rain that left them drenched and shivering. Prickly pear cactus was again penetrating their moccasins and piercing their feet.
The captains decided to send out four hunters on horses to search constantly for game. John Colter, one of the hunters, met three Indians on horseback, who were afraid of him until he put his gun on the ground to show that he meant them no harm. Then they approached him in a friendly manner, and Colter led them back to camp to meet the captains. They were Flatheads who said that they had heard the white men’s guns all day, but were afraid to approach them because they had no guns. They were tracking two Shoshone Indians who had stolen horses from them. One of them told Lewis, through sign language Drouillard had trouble understanding, that the Corps could cross the mountains in six days. This was good news to Lewis, who fretted constantly because their lives depended on getting over the mountains before the deep, impassable snows of winter began.
“Look at that tree!” Shannon exclaimed to the men nearby. All eyes turned to see a tree on which a number of images had been painted. From a large branch hung a white bearskin. “What do you think this is?” he asked.
“Looks almost like a place of worship,” someone suggested.
“Yeah, I agree,” Whitehouse joined in. “I’d say they must believe in a power greater than themselves, just like we do.”
A little farther on, the men were astonished to see a spring of steaming water pouring from rocks. A handsome small green meadow bordered the spring as steam rose in the air, and the men dismounted to examine such strange phenomena.
“The f-f-folks back home will n-never b-b-believe this!” Reuben Fields was certain.
“Hell, I’m not even sure I believe it, and I’m right here to see it,” his brother said, cracking his knuckles. “What could possibly heat that water?”
No one had answers or even a speculation, but the delighted men found that hot water springs were all over this area, and they eagerly left their clothes in piles and relaxed in a soothing hot bath, their first in weeks. When the expedition reassembled, the men felt refreshed and relaxed. The Corps continued its journey and had to keep going until they found water at ten o’clock that night. They had covered eighteen exhausting, but interesting miles that day.
The next day brought rain, hail, and snow. Even worse, Old Toby got lost. The steep, rocky ground was covered with fallen trees, and the horses kept slipping on the wet ground. By the time they made camp, men and horses could scarcely move, and all were ravenously hungry.
“Kill another colt,” Lewis ordered Drouillard. “We have to have nourishing food. We can’t keep expending the energy these mountains demand unless we have food in our stomachs.”
They also had the dried soup that Lewis had wisely decided to bring along. It wasn’t favored by the men, but they were very glad to get it now.
The next day, Old Toby recognized his mistake and corrected it, but the footing in the trail was still extremely difficult. The steep ascent was made worse by the immense number of fallen trees. One of the horses slipped and rolled forty yards down the mountain before it lodged against a tree. It was shaken, but unhurt. The expedition had made only twelve miles by the end of the day in spite of tremendous exertion. Worse, they could see even higher mountains ahead of them. York melted snow to cook the remainder of yesterday’s colt and some of the portable soup.
“I never thought I’d be glad to eat the captain’s portable soup,” Shannon said grimly.
The next morning they awoke covered with snow. During the night, the hungry horses had strayed in search of grass, and it took all morning to find them and bring them in. The trail was very difficult and they made only ten miles that day over slippery terrain that was littered with fallen trees. Their hunters managed to kill only a few grouse, which York cooked, but it was a scant supper and everyone went to sleep still hungry.
Snow continued to fall, depositing several inches. It collected on the branches of trees, and as the men brushed against the branches, the snow fell in their faces and down their collars. Lewis felt that he had never been so cold and wet in his life. Again, their camp was wet, hungry, and miserable. Although the members of the expedition were extremely uncomfortable, they performed their duties without complaint. Lewis was proud of the spirit the men continued to show under such adverse conditions.
“We’ve got to kill the last colt,” Lewis ordered Drouillard.
Then in an aside to Clark, he added in a low voice, “But only God knows where our next meal is coming from.”
As days passed, only a few canisters of dried soup and a bit of bear oil remained in the depleted stock of foodstuffs. Lewis, aware that both men and horses were approaching the limits of their endurance, was beginning to despair. Naturally inclined to melancholy anyway, his spirits were plummeting. God, please let my people survive, he prayed. The fault is mine if anyone’s, not theirs.
Clark conferred with Lewis. “There is no real hope of finding game in these mountains, and we can’t sacrifice any of the packhorses without abandoning essential supplies.”
“Yes, and retreat would only compound our problems,” Lewis said, sitting on a rock in utter despair. The two were sitting apart from the men, who were scattered across the stony slope, silent or dozing. “Backtracking is impossible because a journey back to the Mandan villages is beyond our strength and endurance.”
“But we have to do something!” Clark insisted. “Suppose I take six hunters ahead and try to reach level country where there’s sure to be game and send meat back to the main party?”
“That may be our only hope,” Lewis conceded.
Clark selected six men and struck out at first light, climbing over rugged terrain filled with fallen tree trunks and, at times, nearly impenetrable thickets of brambly undergrowth. Eight hours later they halted to melt snow for their scant supply of portable soup and to let their horses graze. When darkness fell, they found places to sleep on the mountainside.
Meanwhile, Lewis and the main party struggled ahead across eighteen difficult miles and broke out the last of the portable soup when they camped. Every member of the group realized how critical their situation had become. For the most part, the men were quiet, conserving the energy required to talk and laugh. Only little Pomp, now nearly eight months old and almost ready to walk, was his happy, active self, and Sacagawea maintained her pleasant, easy ways as she cared for her young son. Pomp delighted in playing with Seaman.
The next day the entire company was excited when Robert Frazier began cheering and pumping his fist westward into the air. Within seconds, more cheers arose from the ranks as eager eyes searched miles ahead and below, where a large tract of prairie land had come into view.
“Prairie!” exclaimed Ordway. “That means game! Food is ahead!”
“We’ll be there tomorrow,” Old Toby signed happily.
The way ahead was a stony passage that ran along the edge of a steep precipice, and the men tried to avoid looking over the edge to the abyss below. All day long, they followed the ridge without mishap, but at dusk their luck changed. One of the pack horses lost its footing and began to slide. The party watched in horror as the horse slid three hundred feet down the precipice, landing in a creek at the bottom. Three men immediately began the steep descent to save what they could of the supplies. Certainly, the horse would be hopelessly injured, and perhaps would need to be put out of its misery.
As the others watched the precarious descent, fearing for their comrades’ safety, the three men quickly untied the horse’s load and then watched in amazement as the animal climbed shakily to its feet. The men shouldered the packs of supplies and then led the trembling animal back up the steep slope to the stunned crowd at the top.
The next day, to their unspeakable joy, they found a bundle of fresh meat that Clark and his hunters had left tied to a tree limb for them, along with a note. Clark had found and slaughtered a horse.
“God bless him!” Charbonneau said, almost in tears, then adding self-consciously, “My baby won’t die.”
Colter leaned over and whispered to Shields, “I suspect he’s far more concerned about himself than Pomp.”
“Yeah, I’ve never seen the baby eat meat. He’s doing just fine on his mother’s milk. It’s Charbonneau that’s hungry, not the baby.”
“It seems to me that he should be more concerned about Sacagawea getting enough to eat so she can feed Pomp.” The two men shook their heads.
The men immediately built a fire and prepared the food, which lifted their morale as much as it filled their growling stomachs. Dark circles had begun to form menacingly under their eyes. The meat of the horse didn’t last long, however, and the party continued to grow weaker as the days passed. The constant cramp of hunger, the extreme physical exertion, and the dark specter of death from starvation in these mountains were testing the limits of even the most indomitable men. Still, they never lashed out or demanded an explanation for their plight. Even though they were literally starving, they remained a disciplined military unit, each man performing his designated duties without complaint.
Captain Clark reached a plain where he and his men came upon three young Indian boys, ranging in age from ten to twelve years, who ran from the strangers and hid in tall grass. Clark dismounted and gave his gun and horse to one of his men. Talking in a friendly tone, knowing they wouldn’t understand his words, he gave the boys some ribbon and trinkets, and they quickly scampered off.
.In a short time, an adult male Indian approached them with great caution. Clark greeted him with a smile and friendly gestures. Returning Clark’s smile, the Indian motioned for the white men to follow him, and they went together to a large lodge. Through improvised sign language, Clark learned that the lodge belonged to a great chief who was away on a raid with tribal warriors. The squaws at the lodge gave the white men berries, dried salmon, and roots, and Clark gave them presents in return. Then the Indian signaled that Clark and his men should follow him again and led them to a Nez Perce village of about thirty lodges. The squaws, children, and old men of the village gathered to inspect Clark and his men. They treated the white men kindly, feeding them and making them comfortable.
The Nez Perce were darker than the Flatheads and spoke a different language. Although their dress was similar, they wore more beads and also sported brass and copper jewelry as well as shells. The men were large and portly, and the women were small and attractive. Near the Indian village ran a clear river that was about two hundred yards wide and two to five feet deep, with a rocky bottom. Clark and his men saw salmon swimming in the river, which Clark decided to call Clearwater River.
Eating too much food too quickly made Clark and his men sick. Nevertheless, Clark purchased as much dried salmon, roots, and berries as possible with the few articles his party had in their packs, and then sent Reuben Field, with an Indian, back to the main party with the food. Clark sent the other men out to hunt while he began getting information from the Nez Perce about the route west. He was taken to the camp of Twisted Hair, a Nez Perce chief who was about sixty years of age.
“Let’s smoke,” Clark signaled, taking his pipe from his pack.
Twisted Hair seated himself and motioned for Clark to sit.
“Where does this river go?” Clark signaled by pointing in the river’s downstream direction.
“To a bigger river,” Twisted Hair motioned. Then he made an undulating motion like a snake.
Clark turned to York and asked, “Do you suppose he means the river curves and twists?”
:“Maybe, but he could also mean that they call it the Snake River,” York answered intuitively.
Lewis and the main party had not yet arrived at the wide prairie ahead of them. They were on a heavily wooded slope where fallen trees from a forest fire littered the ground. It was an exceptionally difficult passage. They camped near dusk at a large creek surrounded by grass for the horses. The hunters returned with a wolf and three pheasants they had killed, not enough to provide a hearty meal for the group. Everyone was weak and starving, and some were even staggering in their effort to walk.
Lewis cautioned the men to hobble the horses to prevent delay in the morning. He was determined to make a forced march the next day to reach the open prairie, if at all possible. The beautiful wide prairie had turned out to be more distant than Old Toby had thought.
Lewis discovered the next morning to his chagrin that one of the men had not hobbled his horse properly, and by the time the animal was found and returned to camp it was mid-day. The party had gone only two miles before they encountered Reuben Fields with provisions of dried fish and roots.
“What a godsend you are!” exclaimed Lewis. “We are completely out of food.”
Smiling with the knowledge that he was serving the needs of the Corps, Fields shared his news: “There is a N-N-Nez Perce village only s-seven m-miles from here.”
“Thank God!” Lewis said with heart-felt relief. He added to himself, I really was afraid we were going to die here, and I’m sure the men were too.
Lewis and his men straggled into the Nez Perce village, ragged and weak from hunger, but with radiant faces—they had defied death by crossing the monumental mountains! Lewis felt triumphant that the Corps had endured all the trials and deprivations and were now descending at last to level and fertile country where game surely was roaming. Eight-month-old Pomp was no worse for the journey. Sacagawea’s milk had held up in spite of her scant diet, and the baby was actually the only member of the Corps of Discovery who appeared robust. The Corps was nearly giddy with relief that they were safe again. Hundreds of Indians gathered to inspect these tattered, gaunt strangers with their weak, bony horses.
“These good people will want to feed you, but don’t eat too much,” Captain Clark cautioned Lewis’s men. “If you do, after enduring such near starvation, you’ll get sick.”
The Nez Perce Indians were a much larger nation than the Shoshones. They lived well and were dressed well in the skins of mountain goats, deer, and elk. Their homes were leather lodges where they lived in relative comfort. Their curiosity at seeing white men—and especially a black man—was evident. For the first time in his life, York found his black skin a point of pride because it made him unique among the entire gathering of Indians and the Corps of Discovery.
The Nez Perce were friendly and fed the men dried salmon and bread made from the root of a plant called camas, which grew in abundance on the prairie. Despite Clark’s warning, the starving men ate too much, and that night they were all sick. Most of them, including Captain Lewis, were ill for a week. They suffered from dysentery, with acute diarrhea and vomiting.
Had the Nez Perce been hostile, they could have killed the entire Corps in a few minutes and stolen all their goods and guns, gaining an arsenal that was vast by their standards. As with most Indian tribes, they had only a couple of old and inferior guns, and like the Shoshones, they were constantly harassed by the Blackfoot tribe when they made their annual trip to hunt buffalo.
While Lewis was ill, Clark moved their camp to the nearby Clearwater River, where they found Ponderosa pines of sufficient size to make canoes. The Nez Perce could not understand any of the languages spoken by members of the expedition, nor could they understand the sign language that had been universal among the Plains Indians. The two groups tried to develop their own hand signals. Chief Twisted Hair advised the captains about the route to the Pacific Ocean by drawing pictures in the dirt and a map on an elk skin. According to his map, the Clearwater River flowed west and joined the Columbia River.
Twisted Hair signed to the captains that it was a five-sleep journey to the Columbia River by means of the Clearwater River and Snake Rivers, and then another five sleeps to the falls of the Columbia. If Twisted Hair was right, and if their interpretation of his signs was correct, the Corps of Discovery was only two weeks from the ocean. However, the captains had learned from experience that Indian estimates of distance were either too optimistic or the Indians traveled much faster than white men. The latter was probably true because of the tons of supplies the Corps was carrying. In any case, they weren’t going anywhere until they could rest, regain their strength, and build canoes.
Lewis named their camp near the Nez Perce village Traveler’s Rest. Over the next couple of days, the captains awarded medals to Twisted Hair and three lesser chiefs, along with shirts, knives, handkerchiefs, and tobacco. These trifles did not satisfy the Indians, however, and at the end of the second day the Nez Perce signaled that the food for the Corps would no longer be free. The captains were forced to trade from their diminishing supply of goods for more roots, berries, and dried fish.
“We are on our way to the great bad-tasting lake where the sun goes down,” Clark signaled to Twisted Hair. “We will go by canoe, and we need to leave our horses here until we come back. I will give you two army rifles when we return if you will care for our horses until then.”
Twisted Hair promised to look after the expedition’s herd of thirty-eight horses until the expedition returned in the spring on their journey back home. He probably figured that if the white men didn’t return, the Nez Perce would be that much richer in horses, and if they did return he would have acquired two excellent guns.
“I have a branding iron of my initials,” Lewis told Clark. “We can brand our horses to distinguish them from those of the Nez Perce.”
“That’s a bit of good luck,” Clark agreed. “That will probably avoid problems on our return trip.”
Clark took a work party to the stand of ponderosa pines and divided the party into five teams, each to make one canoe. However, the heat was stifling and many of the men were still ill. Because he had so few healthy men, Clark decided to use the Indian method for making canoes. Instead of hewing out the inside of the canoe with chisels and axes, a very strenuous job, they put the tree trunk over a slow-burning fire trench, a process that Twisted Hair showed them how to do. Using this method, it took ten days to complete four large canoes and one small one.
As work on the canoes progressed, the members of the expedition continued to live on dried fish bought from the Nez Perce. In this level and fertile countryside, the Corps expected to find game animals, but their hunters returned empty-handed every day, and the men were not regaining their strength. Lewis decided to slaughter a horse, and at last the men ate heartily.
It was soon time to leave Traveler’s Rest.