two parties stopped to dine; when Captain Clark, finding that the river became wider and deeper, and that the canoes could advance more rapidly than the horses, determined to go himself by water, leaving Sergeant Pryor with six men to bring on the horses.  In this way they resumed their journey after dinner, and camped on the eastern side of the river, opposite the head of Three-thousand-mile Island.  The beaver were basking in great numbers along the shore; there were also some young wild geese and ducks.  The mosquitoes were very troublesome during the day, but after sunset the weather became cool and they disappeared.”

Three-thousand-mile Island was so named by the explorers, when they ascended these streams, because it was at a point exactly three thousand miles from the mouth of the Missouri.  But no such island exists now; it has probably been worn away by the swift-rushing current of the river.  The route of Captain Clark and his party, up to this time had been a few miles west of Bannock City, Montana.  As the captain was now to proceed by land to the Yellowstone, again leaving the canoe party, it is well to recall the fact that his route from the Three Forks of the Missouri to the Yellowstone follows pretty nearly the present line of the railroad from Gallatin City to Livingston, by the way of Bozeman Pass.  Of this route the journal says:—­

“Throughout the whole, game was very abundant.  They procured deer in the low grounds; beaver and otter were seen in Gallatin River, and elk, wolves, eagles, hawks, crows, and geese at different parts of the route.  The plain was intersected by several great roads leading to a gap in the mountains, about twenty miles distant, in a direction E.N.E.; but the Indian woman, who was acquainted with the country, recommended a gap more to the southward.  This course Captain Clark determined to pursue.”

Let us pause here to pay a little tribute to the memory of “the Indian woman,” Sacajawea.  She showed that she was very observant, had a good memory, and was plucky and determined when in trouble.  She was the guide of the exploring party when she was in a region of country, as here, with which she was familiar.  She remembered localities which she had not seen since her childhood.  When their pirogue was upset by the carelessness of her husband, it was she who saved the goods and helped to right the boat.  And, with her helpless infant clinging to her, she rode with the men, guiding them with unerring skill through the mountain fastnesses and lonely passes which the white men saw for the first time when their salient features were pointed out to them by the intelligent and faithful Sacajawea.  The Indian woman has long since departed to the Happy Hunting-Grounds of her fathers; only her name and story remain to us who follow the footsteps of the brave pioneers of the western continent.  But posterity should not forget the services which were rendered to the white race by Sacajawea.