Lewis spread out the pitiful supply of trade goods he had brought with him—some beads, a looking glass, a few trinkets. Leaving his rifle and pouch with McNeal, he advanced toward the Indian.
The Indian sat his horse, and watched, until Lewis was within two hundred yards. At that point, he turned his horse and began to move off slowly.
Desperate, Lewis called in as loud a voice as he could command, “tab-ba-bone,” repeatedly.
Instead of responding to Lewis, the Indian kept watching Drouillard and Shields as they advanced. Lewis was furious with them: “Neither of them haveing segacity enough to recollect the impropriety of advancing when they saw me thus in parley with the Indian.” Finally, he broke his rule not to make signals—he signaled them to stop. Drouillard saw and obeyed; Shields (“who afterwards told me that he did not observe the signal”) kept coming on.
At 150 yards, Lewis repeated “tab-ba-bone,” and held up “the trinkits in my hands and striped up my shirt sleve to give him an opportunity of seeing the coulour of my skin.”
At one hundred yards, the Indian “suddonly turned his hose about, gave him the whip, leaped the creek and disapeared in the willow brush in an instant and with him vanished all my hopes of obtaining horses for the preasent.”
“I now felt quite as much mortification and disappointment as I had pleasure and expectation at the first sight of this indian.” He was “soarly chargrined” by the conduct of the men, particularly Shields, whom he blamed for the failure.
“I now called the men to me,” Lewis wrote, “and could not forbare abraiding them a little for their want of attention and imprudence on this occasion.” Blaming them wasn’t going to accomplish anything, however, and Lewis’s refusal to assess his own mistakes in the encounter is noticeable. Surely he was just as guilty as they were, if not more so.
But he directed his anger at them. He had left his telescope with the blanket he had spread. McNeal had neglected to bring it along with the blanket, and Lewis seemed to take a bit of pleasure in ordering Drouillard and Shields to go back to search for it.
When they found it and returned, the party set off on the track of the horse, McNeal carrying a small U.S. flag attached to a pole. Thinking that the Indians might well be watching from the surrounding hills, and not wanting to give them the idea that an advance on them was being made, Lewis halted at an open place, built a fire, and cooked and ate breakfast. But just as he started out again, a heavy shower of rain raised the grass and wiped out the track. He saw several places where it appeared to him that the Indians had been digging roots that day, which meant the main village couldn’t be far off. At twenty miles, he made camp.
•
On the morning of August 12, “we fell in with a large and plain Indian road. . . . it passed a stout stream. . . . Here we halted and brakfasted on the last of our venison, having yet a small peice of pork in reseve.”
They hiked on, headed toward a pass, the stream growing small as they ascended the gentle slope. “At a distance of 4 miles further the road took us to the most distant fountain of the waters of the mighty Missouri in search of which we have spent so many toilsome days and wristless nights.”
He assessed the impact on himself: “Thus far I had accomplished one of those great objects on which my mind has been unalterably fixed for many years, judge then of the pleasure I felt in allying my thirst with this pure and ice cold water.”
Lewis was not alone in his rejoicing: “Two miles below McNeal had exultingly stood with a foot on each side of this little rivulet and thanked his god that he had lived to bestride the mighty & heretofore deemed endless Missouri.”
Now was the moment to go to the top of the pass, to become the first American to look on Idaho and the great northwestern empire. Lewis described the moment: “We proceeded on to the top of the dividing ridge from which I discovered immence ranges of high mountains still to the West of us with their tops partially covered with snow.”V
To what degree Lewis was surprised or disheartened by the sight, he never said. John Logan Allen asks us to “imagine the shock and the surprise—for from the top of that ridge were to be seen neither the great river that had been promised nor the open plains extending to the shores of the South Sea.” What Allen calls “the geography of hope” had to give way to “the geography of reality.”5 With Lewis’s last step to the top of the Divide went decades of theory about the nature of the Rocky Mountains, shattered by a single glance from a single man. Equally shattered were Lewis’s hopes for an easy portage to a major branch of the Columbia.
But whatever Lewis felt as he first saw the Bitterroot Range of the Rocky Mountains, he never wrote about. Nor did he write about his feelings as he took his first step on the western side of the Divide, outside of Louisiana.
He descended the mountain, which was much steeper than the approach on the eastern side, about three-quarters of a mile, “to a handsome bold running Creek of cold Clear water. here I first tasted the water of the great Columbia river.”
The party proceeded another ten miles or so before making camp. “As we had killed nothing during the day we now boiled and eat the remainder of our pork, having yet a little flour and parched meal.”
Lewis was deep into Indian country with only three men, and his main body three or four days’ march away. He had a few geegaws as his currency. He had a frightened Indian reporting back to the Shoshones that strangers were in the area. He had just been through enough experiences for an entire expedition, all in one day. He needed a good night’s sleep, and lots of good luck in the morning.
* * *
I. Had he traveled up the Dearborn, he would have come to today’s Lewis and Clark Pass, a fairly low pass over the Divide with the Blackfoot River Valley on the other side, leading directly to today’s Missoula, Montana, and the Clark Fork River, which flows into the Columbia.
II. Usually the first captain to see a river named it, but not always. And often they saw a new river simultaneously. In this case, Clark had first seen the three rivers that merge to form the Missouri, but Lewis gave them their names. The following day, he solicited Clark’s views; Clark said he agreed that no one could claim right of place and that therefore Jefferson, Gallatin, and Madison were appropriate names.
III. The Wisdom is today’s Big Hole; the Philanthropy is today’s Ruby. The main stream the captains continued to call the Jefferson; on today’s maps it is the Beaverhead.
IV. Shoshone Cove, now mostly covered by the Clark Canyon Reservoir.
V. He was at Lemhi Pass, on today’s Montana-Idaho border. Except for a wooden fence along the border, a cattle guard at the crossing, and a logging road, the site is pristine. Along with the Missouri River from Fort Benton to Fort Peck Lake, and the Lolo Trail in Idaho, it is the closest we can come today to seeing a site as Lewis saw it in 1805. The U.S. Forest Service has done an excellent job of signposting the route Lewis traveled.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Over the Continental Divide
August 13–August 31, 1805
On Tuesday morning, August 13, 1805, Lewis set out early, headed west on a plain, heavily and recently used Indian trail that fell down a long, descending valley. Along the way, he saw and described the Rocky Mountain maple, the skunkbush sumac, and the common snowberry. He stopped to collect seeds of the snowberry for Mr. Jefferson.I
At nine miles, Lewis saw two Indian women, a man, and some dogs. When he had arrived within half a mile of them, he ordered Drouillard and the two privates to halt, unslung his pack and rifle and put them on the ground, unfurled a flag, and advanced alone at a steady pace toward the Indians. The women retreated, but the man stayed in place until Lewis was within a hundred yards.
Lewis called out “tab-ba-bone,” loudly and frequently. The man “absconded.”
Lewis had his men join him and proceeded. The country was cut by some short and steep ravines. After less than a mile, topping a rise, they came on three Indian women, one a twelve-year-old, one a teen, an
d the third elderly, only thirty yards away. At the first sight, Lewis laid down his rifle and advanced on the group. The teen ran off, but the old woman and the child remained. Seeing no chance to escape, they sat on the ground and held their heads down; to Lewis it looked as though they had reconciled themselves to die.
He approached and took the elderly woman by the hand, raised her up, said “tab-ba-bone,” and rolled up his shirtsleeve to show her his white skin (his hands and face were so deeply tanned he might have been an Indian, and his clothes were entirely leather). Drouillard and the privates joined him. From their packs he gave the woman some beads, a few moccasin awls, a few mirrors, and some paint. His skin and the gifts, and his friendly attitude, were enough to calm her down.
Through Drouillard’s sign language, he asked her to call the teen back, fearing that otherwise the girl might alarm the main body of Shoshones. The old woman did as asked, and the teen reappeared. Lewis gave her some trinkets and painted the “tawny cheeks” of the women with some vermilion. When the Indians were composed, Lewis told them, through Drouillard, that he “wished them to conduct us to their camp that we wer anxious to become acquainted with the chiefs and warriors of their nation.” They did as requested, and the group set off, the Indians leading.
After two miles, the long-anticipated and eagerly sought contact took place. Sixty warriors, mounted on excellent horses and armed for war with bows and arrows plus three inferior rifles, came on at full speed. When they saw Lewis’s party, they halted.
This was the first time an American had ever seen a Shoshone war party, and the first time this band of Shoshones had ever seen an American. The Indians were overwhelmingly superior. It would have been the work of only a moment for them to overwhelm Lewis’s party, and they would have more than doubled their firepower in rifles and gathered as loot more knives, awls, looking glasses, and other trinkets than any Rocky Mountain Indian band had ever seen.
But rather than assuming a defensive position, Lewis laid down his rifle, picked up his flag, told his party to stay in place, and, following the old woman who was guiding, advanced slowly toward he knew not what.
A man Lewis assumed was the chief rode in the lead. He halted to speak to the old woman. She told him that these were white men “and exultingly shewed the presents which had been given.” This broke the tension. The chief and then the warriors dismounted.
The chief advanced. Saying “ah-hi-e, ah-hi-e,” which Lewis later learned meant “I am much pleased, I am much rejoiced,” the chief put his left arm over Lewis’s right shoulder and applied his left cheek to Lewis’s right cheek, continuing “to frequently vociforate the word ah-hi-e.”
The warriors and Lewis’s men then came on, “and we wer all carresed and besmeared with their grease and paint till I was heartily tired of the national hug.”
This first meeting between Shoshones and Americans went better than Lewis could have dared to hope. He had been exceedingly lucky. The war party had ridden out in response to the alarm given by the man who had fled earlier that day. The Shoshones expected to find Blackfeet and might have attacked without pause save for the old woman. Had Lewis not met her, and had she not responded so positively to his appeals and gifts, there might well have been a firefight.
Instead there was a parlay. Lewis brought out his pipe and sat, indicating to the Indians that they should do the same. They did, but not without removing their moccasins, a custom among the Shoshones to indicate sincerity in friendship, or, as Lewis put it, “which is as much as to say that they wish they may always go bearfoot if they are not sincere; a pretty heavy penalty if they are to march through the plains of their country.”
Lewis lit and passed the pipe. After smoking several rounds, he distributed some presents. The Shoshones were “much pleased particularly with the blue beads and vermillion.” Lewis learned that the chiefs name was “Ca-me-ah wait.” Lewis told him that “the object of our visit was a friendly one,” that after they reached Cameahwait’s camp he would explain the expedition more fully, including “who we wer, from whence we had come and wither we were going.” He gave Cameahwait an American flag, “which I informed him was an emblem of peace among whitemen [sic] . . . to be respected as the bond of union between us.”
Cameahwait spoke to his warriors, and soon the entire party set out for the main camp. He sent some youngsters ahead to inform the others to prepare for their arrival. When they reached the camp, on the east bank of the Lemhi River, about seven miles north of today’s Tendoy, Idaho, Lewis was ushered into an old leather tepee (the only one the band had left after the Blackfoot raid) and ceremoniously seated on green boughs and antelope skins.
After the ritual smoking, “I now explained to them the objects of our journey &c.” How well the Shoshones could comprehend a trip across the continent—or if they could even conceive of the continent—Lewis did not say.
He was confident the sign language Drouillard was using was understood, even though he realized it was “imperfect and liable to error.” Still, “The strong parts of the ideas are seldom mistaken.”
Women and children crowded around, eager to see these “children of the Great Spirit.” Lewis distributed the presents he had left, to the delight of the Shoshones. One Shoshone warrior later described the mirrors as “things like solid water, which were sometimes brilliant as the sun, and which sometimes showed us our faces.”1
By this time, it was growing dark. Lewis and his men had not eaten in twenty-four hours. He mentioned this to Cameahwait, who said he was sorry but the band had nothing but berries to eat. He gave the white men some cakes of serviceberries and choke cherries. “Of these I made a hearty meal,” Lewis wrote.
He strolled down to the Lemhi River and found it a rapid, clear stream about forty yards wide and three feet deep. Through Drouillard’s signs, Lewis inquired about the course of the stream. Cameahwait replied that a half-day’s march north it joined with another, twice as large, coming in from the southwest, forming today’s Salmon River. On further questioning, Cameahwait said there was little timber along the river below, that the river was “confined between inacessable mountains, was very rapid and rocky insomuch that it was impossible for us to pass either by land or water down this river to the great lake where the white men lived as he had been informed.”
Cameahwait was referring to the traders who called at the mouth of the Columbia River. His description of the Salmon was as accurate as it was unwelcome. It confirmed what Lewis must have feared when he first gazed on the Bitterroots from Lemhi Pass—there was no all-water route, or anything remotely resembling it, across the continent.
But Lewis dared to hope that this was untrue, suspecting that Cameahwait was only trying to detain the Americans for trading purposes.
In fact, as Lewis should have known from Sacagawea, it was time for Cameahwait’s band to cross the Divide to meet other bands of Shoshones and Flatheads to go on a hunt in the Missouri River buffalo country. Having lied to the chief about the meaning of the flag, and being prepared to tell more lies if necessary to meet his aims, Lewis was ready to believe the worst about Cameahwait.
The distressing information about the Salmon was somewhat balanced for Lewis by the sight of “a great number of horses feeding in every direction around their camp.” Drouillard later counted four hundred of them. Assuming he could trade for an adequate number of horses, Lewis had “little doubt but we shall be enable to . . . transport our stores even if we are compelled to travel by land over these mountains.”
His spirits were further raised when, on his return to his tepee, a warrior gave him a piece of fresh-roasted salmon, “which I eat with a very good relish. this was the first salmon I had seen and perfectly convinced me that we were on the waters of the Pacific Ocean.” In other words, his positive assertion the previous day that he had first tasted the waters of the Columbia after crossing Lemhi Pass had been more an expression of hope than a certain fact; for all he knew, the Lemhi-Salmon River might have been a t
ributary of the Dearborn River.
That night, the Shoshones entertained Lewis and party with a dance. It lasted almost to dawn. At midnight, “I grew sleepy and retired to rest leaving the men to amuse themselves with the Indians. . . . I was several times awoke in the course of the night by their yells but was too much fortiegued to be deprived of a tolerable sound night’s repose.”
•
With contact made, Lewis now had to give Clark time to come up the Jefferson as far as the fork that marked the extreme limit of navigation—if that limit had not already been passed. Clark was making only four or five miles a day in the shallow, boulder-covered bed of the Jefferson, which was not much more than a large creek. Lewis decided to spend the morning of August 14 writing in his journal, the afternoon in procuring further information from Cameahwait about the country to the west.
He sent Drouillard and the privates out to hunt. The Indians furnished them with horses, and some twenty young braves joined them. Lewis was treated to a sight few white men ever saw, a chase on horseback by the young Indian hunters after ten pronghorns. “It lasted about 2 hours and considerable part of the chase in view from my tent. The hunters returned [they] had not killed a single Antelope, and their horses foaming with sweat.”
When Drouillard returned, equally unsuccessful, Lewis used his sign-language ability to ask Cameahwait “to instruct me with rispect to the geogrphy of his country.” The chief repeated what he had said the previous day, with more details. After drawing a waving line on the ground to represent the river, he piled sand on each side of it to represent “the vast mountains of rock eternally covered with snow through which the river passed.” He spoke of “perpendicular and even juting rocks so closely hemned in the river that there was no possibilyte of passing along the shore. . . . the whole surface of the river was beat into perfect foam as far as the eye could reach. That the mountains were also inaccessible to man or horse.”II
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