They were happy to get away from the rapids. The Indians there had been surly and so thievish that they almost stole articles from the men’s hands. One band even tried to steal Lewis’s dog, Seaman.
So many items were stolen that when Lewis caught one man attempting to make off with an iron fitting for a canoe, he “gave him several severe blows and mad[e] the men kick him out of camp.” It was the first time either Lewis or Clark had raised a hand against an Indian. Lewis’s temper flared in his writings that spring: “Many of the natives crouded about the bank of the river where the men were engaged in taking up the canoes; one of them had the insolence to cast stones down . . . at the men. . . . These are the greatest thieves and scoundrels we have met with. . . . I hope that the friendly interposition of [their] chief may prevent our being compelled to use some violence with these people; our men seem well-disposed to kill a few of them.”
By April 24, after days of bickering with the Indians, they were able to buy three more horses. Selling the two remaining canoes for a few strands of beads, they continued on horseback over the stony, barren uplands bordering the Columbia River.
A few days later, they were welcomed by the Walla Walla Indians they had met on the trip west, who not only fed them and sold them ten dogs - the party was living pretty much on fresh dog and dried elk - but also gave them three horses and sold them two more. A day after the explorers had left, the helpful Walla Walla chief sent three young men riding after them to return a steel trap they had forgotten.
The party followed the Columbia River until it turned north, and then cut directly across country to the east. As they neared Nez Percé territory, they were met by ten Nez Percé warriors led by their chief Weahkoonut, who had heard they were on their way back and had come to greet them. Soon they met Tetoharsky, the younger of the two chiefs who had guided the expedition safely past the Great Falls on its outbound journey. Tetoharsky was the son of the guide Clark had called “Old Toby.”
The next day, May 5, the Indians delivered Clark a horse the expedition had turned over for safekeeping to the chief they called Twisted Hair. If the rest of their mounts were in equally good condition, the explorers could count on having enough horses to carry them over the Divide.
The captains were relieved to be again among the friendly Nez Percé; however, the party had no food left, and the Indians had only roots to spare. With their trading goods nearly gone, the Americans cut the buttons from their remaining coats - no longer needed since the party was clad entirely in skins - and bartered them for something to eat.
Clark continued to offer the natives medical treatment in exchange for food. He salved his conscience by noting: “We take care to give them no article which can possibly injure them, and in maney cases can administer & give such medicine & sirgical aid as will effectually restore in simple cases &c.”
On May 8, they started out with a chief named Cut Nose - because of a nostril slit in battle - to find Twisted Hair and the horses he had been tending for them since the previous autumn. But when they located Twisted Hair, the two chiefs began arguing. It took the captains some time to discern the truth from the conflicting stories. It appeared that Twisted Hair’s men had hunted with the expedition’s horses and had misused the animals until Cut Nose and another chief, Broken Arm, had stepped in and taken charge of the mounts. Thanks to the captains’ diplomacy, the chiefs were reconciled, and most of the horses and saddles were recovered.
The next day, May 10, they moved some sixteen miles to the village of the principal Nez Percé chief Broken Arm, which Lewis described: “The village of the broken arm consists of one house or Lodge only which is 150 feet in length built in the usual form of sticks mat and dry grass. it contains twenty-four fires and about double that number of families. . . . the noise of their women pounding roots reminds me of a nail factory.”
Since several important chiefs had ridden there to see them, Lewis and Clark arranged a council to tell the Nez Percé about the United States government’s desire to bring peace and trade to its red brothers. It was not easy to convey the message. One of the captains would say a few phrases, which Drouillard or Labiche would translate into French for Charbonneau, who would then translate into Minnetaree for Sacagawea. She, in turn, would put them into Shoshone, while a Shoshone prisoner of the Nez Percé would make the final translation into Nez Percé. “[T]he interpretation being [tedious] it occupied the greater part of the day,” Clark wrote.
The council was a success. The chief, Lewis reported, “said the whitemen might be assured of their warmest attachment and that they would always give them every assistance in their powers; that they were poor, but their hearts were good. I think we can justly affirm, to the honor of this people, that they are the most hospitable, honest and sincere people that we have met with in our voyage.”
Still, the chiefs would not commit to sending guides with the expedition across the mountains. Since there was no setting out until the snow melted in the high passes, the captains decided to move their camp to the banks of the Clearwater River, where the hunting was better, the horses had plenty of grazing, and there was hope of netting fresh salmon once the fish started running. Their only real problem was William Bratton, who was in no condition to journey over the Divide. Wracked by extreme lower back pain, Bratton rode horseback while the other men walked and led the pack horses.
John Shields observed that he “had seen men in a similar situation restored by violent sweats,” and Bratton, desperate for a cure, agreed to the treatment.
Shields dug a pit four feet deep, lined it with rocks, and built a fire on top. When the rocks were hot enough, he removed the fire and rigged a seat across the hole and lowered the naked Bratton onto it. Bratton then poured water onto the rocks to make as much steam as he could bear. After twenty minutes, the patient was “taken out and suddonly plunged in cold water twise and was then immediately returned to the sweat hole.” He stewed for another forty-five minutes, drinking copious amounts of mint tea, before he was taken out, wrapped in blankets, and “suffered to cool gradually.” The next day, Bratton was almost free from pain.
The Nez Percé begged Clark, “their favorite phisician,” for medical aid. Bratton’s recovery was so remarkable that the captains decided to give the same treatment to one of the most hopeless Indian cases, a chief whose limbs had been paralyzed for three years. The chief’s father volunteered to hold the helpless man upright in the hole and endured the steam bath along with his son. The next day, the chief was able to move his arms; a day later, he could wash his face. After another steaming, he could move one of his legs, and in the next few days, he recovered the use of all his limbs.
Late in May, Sacagawea’s son, Pompy, who had survived one hardship after another in his fifteen months, had bad teething troubles. His face swelled dangerously, and he was running a high fever, with an abscess behind his ear. In spite of poultices of wild onion and doses of “cream of tarter &c.,” the little boy grew worse, and the captains made several worried entries in their journals before he began to recover.
Game and fish remained scarce. “Patience, patience,” Lewis wrote. Daily, he watched the river for signs of melted snows of “that icy barier which seperates me from my friends and Country, from all which makes life esteemable.”
Meanwhile, the explorers passed the time, seeking distractions from the long journey ahead. They taught the Indians a game called “base,” a precursor to baseball. “Several foot races were run this evening between the indians and our men,” Lewis noted on June 8. “. . . When the racing was over the men divided themselves into two parties and played prison base, by way of exercise which we wish the men to take previously to entering the mountains. In short, those who are not hunters have had so little to do that they are getting reather lazy and slouthfull. After dark, we had the violin played and danced for the amusement of ourselves and the Indians.”
Although the Nez Percé were friendly, they were reluctant to guide the Americans over t
he Rockies for fear of being attacked by the Blackfeet and Minnetarees, who tyrannized the tribes to the east. Unwilling to wait any longer, the party set out on June 10 to find its own way over the Bitterroot Mountains. But once they reached the high country, they found the snow still twelve or fifteen feet deep in many places and knew they would never be able to follow the trail.
It was a bitter blow, “the first time . . . on this long tour that we have ever been compelled to retreat,” wrote Lewis. Leaving most of their baggage piled on scaffolds above the snow, they returned to the valley and waited until they could persuade five Nez Percé to guide them over the mountains.
They followed almost exactly the trail they had taken the previous autumn, moving as fast as they dared, because there would be no grazing for their horses until they crossed the perilous mountains. This time, however, it was easier. Although a slip into a precipice would have plunged a horse to its death, there were no accidents. Even the deepest snow was so firm that the horses’ hoofs sank no more than two or three inches, and it covered many of the rocks and logs that had made previous traveling difficult. “The day was pleasant throughout,” noted Sergeant Patrick Gass on June 27, “but it appeared to me somewhat extraordinary, to be traveling over snow six or eight feet deep in the latter end of June. The most of us, however, had saved our socks, as we expected to find snow in these mountains.” Although food grew scarce, they did not have to kill and eat their horses as they had before.
On June 29, they crossed the Lolo Pass and were over the Bitterroot Mountains. That night, they stopped to camp by some hot springs, where they all bathed. Clark stayed in the hot water for ten minutes; Lewis, sweating profusely, managed nineteen.
The next day, they reached Traveler’s Rest, where they had prepared for the mountain crossing the autumn before. Game was abundant for the first time in weeks, and men and horses rested as the captains paid their guides and planned their next move.
After leaving the Great Falls of the Missouri on their way west, the explorers had swung in a U-shaped path, traveling south up the Missouri and the Jefferson, then west over Lemhi Pass, and finally north, following the Bitterroot River to Traveler’s Rest.
Clark’s map, which he had spent the winter at Fort Clatsop making, became an important asset. Studying it, the expedition members determined it would be more efficient to move east across the open end of the U.
The captains decided that Lewis, with nine men, would try the short cut and use his extra time to explore the Marias River area, while Clark would lead the rest of the party over their original route to the forks of the Jefferson. Once they recovered the canoes and goods cached there, Clark’s group would travel down the Jefferson to the Three Forks. There, Sergeant Ordway would take a canoe party down the Missouri, pick up the baggage at the Great Falls, and meet Lewis at the Marias. Meanwhile, Clark and the rest of the men would cross east to the still-unexplored Yellowstone River, make canoes, and follow the river to the Missouri.
It was dangerous to divide into three small bands just when they were entering hostile Indian country, but the captains felt it was their duty to explore as much of the area as they could before their return to civilization. Lewis expressed his trepidation: “I could not avoid feeling much concern on this occasion although I hoped this separation was only momentary.”
On July 3, Clark and his men began following the Bitterroot to the south as Lewis’s party set off north and then east along the river he had named after his “worthy friend and companion Capt. Clark.” Lewis and his men moved along without much difficulty, save from the mosquitoes, which tormented them constantly. On July 7, they passed through a gap in a low ridge - now called Lewis and Clark Pass - and found that they had crossed the Continental Divide.
Soon they were among herds of bellowing buffalo, and the hungry days were past. They struck the Medicine River (today called the Sun River) on July 8 and followed it to its mouth just above the Great Falls. By July 13, they were at the spot they had camped more than a year before.
When they opened their cache, they discovered that high water had flooded it. All the plant specimens Lewis had collected and carefully dried were lost, most of the medicines were ruined, and Lewis’s bearskins were mildewed. But a crucial chart of the Missouri was safe, and other important articles, though damp, could be dried out.
The mosquitoes were so numerous that the men often inhaled them; even the dog howled with the torment. Ten of their horses were stolen by Indians, and Drouillard tracked them for three days without success. The evening he returned, McNeal was surprised by a grizzly bear and escaped by climbing a tree. “There seems to be a sertain fatality attatched to . . . these falls,” wrote Lewis, under his ragged mosquito net.
On July 17, Lewis instructed Gass and five men to wait for Ordway’s canoe party to help portage the canoes around the Great Falls. Taking Drouillard and the Field brothers, the captain headed for the upper waters of the Marias River.
The previous summer, everyone but Lewis and Clark had been convinced that the Marias was the true Missouri and led directly into the mountains. Having proved them wrong, the captain now intended to see if any branch of the Marias extended as far north as fifty degrees latitude. If so, the river would come close enough to the Saskatchewan River in Canada for a portage to connect the streams, making a route to transport Canadian furs south to American ports.
Lewis’s group rode the Marias toward its headwaters, but by July 22, it was clear that no part of the river would reach fifty degrees latitude. Wet and hungry, they started back on July 26. There had been many signs of Indian hunting parties.
They were barely eighteen miles on their way to the Missouri, and Drouillard was out in front, when Lewis saw eight Indians. He described the encounter: “This was a very unpleasant sight, however I resolved to make the best of our situation and to approach them in a friendly manner. I directed J. Field to display the flag which I had brought for that purpose and advanced slowly toward them. About this time they discovered us and appeared to run about in a very confused manner as if much allarmed, their attention had been previously so fixed on Drewyer that they did not discover us untill we had began to advance upon them.”
Lewis managed to overcome the Indians’ confusion and distrust by shaking hands and smoking a peace pipe with them. Lewis guessed these were Minnetarees of Fort de Prairie, although, in fact, they were Blackfeet. He offered gifts – some handkerchiefs, flags, and Peace Medals - to the three chiefs among them. Lewis suggested that they camp together by the river, and the Indians agreed. That evening – through Drouillard’s interpreting - Lewis asked them to make peace with their neighbors and invited them to visit the trading posts that would soon be set up at the mouth of the Marias River. The explorers and Indians shared dinner, and slept under three small cottonwood trees.
Although the Indians seemed friendly, Lewis did not trust them. He sat up late smoking with them and kept the first watch until the Indians had fallen asleep. Then, turning the watch over to Reuben Field, Lewis “feell into a profound sleep.”
He awoke at daybreak to hear Drouillard yell, “Damn you, let go my gun!” and jumped up to discover a fight going on. Joseph Field, then on watch, had carelessly laid his rifle down beside his sleeping brother, and one of the Indians had taken both guns and run. Two other warriors instantly pounced on Lewis and Drouillard’s guns. Joseph and Reuben ran after the thief and caught him. In the struggle, Reuben stabbed the Indian. Drouillard was awake the moment his rifle was touched and grabbed it back, just as Lewis saw an Indian making off with his. Drawing his pistol, the captain “bid him lay down my gun which he was in the act of doing when the Fields [brothers] returned and drew up their guns to shoot him which I forbid as he did not appear to be about to make any resistance. . . . He droped the gun and walked slowly off.”
The Indians began driving off the horses, with the explorers in hot pursuit. Panting for breath, Lewis called out that he would shoot if they did not give him his horse b
ack. In an exchange of shots, a second Indian fell dead. Lewis noted how close he had come to being injured, or killed: “At the distance of 30 steps . . . I shot him through the belly. He fell to his knees and on his wright elbow, from which position he partly raised himself up and fired at me, and turning himself about crawled in behind a rock. . . . He overshot me, [but] being bearheaded I felt the wind of his bullet very distinctly.”
The rest of the Indians fled, leaving half their horses and nearly all their weapons behind. Lewis picked out four of the best Indian horses to replace his own, bringing his party’s total to seven. While the men saddled up, the captain burned the Indians’ bows and arrows and shields on the campfire. This was the only time expedition members killed any Indians, and Lewis was convinced that the survivors would bring a large Indian band after them, bent on revenge. Since the Indians knew he intended to meet the rest of his party at the junction of the Marias River and the Missouri, Lewis feared that hostile natives might massacre the other members of the expedition before he could get there to warn them.
Taking the Indians’ buffalo meat, the four began pushing their horses “as hard as they would bear” toward the Missouri. By dark, they were eighty miles from the scene of the attack, but after resting briefly, they traveled by moonlight and covered another twenty miles before they lay down to sleep about 2:00 a.m. Their ride left them so saddle-sore that they could hardly stand the next day, but Lewis insisted they continue on.
As they neared the Missouri, they heard the sound of gunfire. Sergeant Ordway’s ten-man party had made the journey down the Missouri without incident and had been joined at the Great Falls by the six men Lewis had left there. With horses to do the heavy hauling, the sixteen men had portaged canoes and luggage around the Great Falls much more easily than the entire expedition had done on the way upstream. Once the portage was over, Ordway and most of his men took the white pirogue and five canoes downstream, while Gass and Willard set out overland with the horses. As luck would have it, they arrived at the rendezvous only a few hours after the canoe party encountered Lewis.
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