at once put fur collars, after the fashion of Indian dress, round the white men’s shoulders.  As this was plainly a trick to conceal the whites in case of treachery on their part, Lewis at once took off his hat and placed it on the chief’s head.  Then he hurried the Indians along, lest they should lose courage completely.  To his mortification, Captain Clark did not appear.  To revive the Indians’ courage, the white men then passed their guns across to the Snakes, signalling willingness to suffer death if the Indians discovered treachery.  That night all the Indians hid in the woods but five, who slept on guard round the whites.  If anything had stopped Clark’s advance, Lewis was lost.  Though neither knew it, Lewis and Clark were only four miles apart, Clark, Chaboneau, the guide, and Sacajawea, the Indian woman, were walking on the shore early in the morning, when the squaw began to dance with signs of the most extravagant joy.  Looking ahead, Clark saw one of Lewis’ men, disguised as an Indian, leading a company of Snake warriors that the squaw had recognized as her own people, from whom she had been wrested when a child.  The Indians broke into songs of delight, and Sacajawea, dashing through the crowd, threw her arms round an Indian woman, sobbing and laughing and exhibiting all the hysterical delight of a demented creature.  Sacajawea and the woman had been playmates in childhood and had been captured in the same war; but the Snake woman had escaped, while Sacajawea became a slave and married the French guide.

Meanwhile, Captain Clark was being welcomed by Lewis and the chief, Cameahwait.  Sacajawea was called to interpret.  Cameahwait rose to speak.  The poor squaw flung herself on him with cries of delight.  In the chief of the Snakes she had recognized her brother.  Laced coats, medals, flags, and trinkets were presented to the Snakes; but though willing enough to act as guides, the Indians discouraged the explorers about going on in boats.  The western stream was broken for leagues by terrible rapids walled in with impassable precipices.  Boats were abandoned and horses bought from the Snakes.  The white men set their faces northwestward, the southern trail, usually followed by the Snakes, leading too much in the direction of the Spanish settlements.  Game grew so scarce that by September the men were without food and a colt was killed for meat.

By October the company was reduced to a diet of dog; but the last Divide had been crossed.  Horses were left with an Indian chief of the Flatheads, and the explorers glided down the Clearwater, leading to the Columbia, in five canoes and one pilot boat.  Great was the joy in camp on November 8, 1805; for the boats had passed the last portage of the Columbia.  When heavy fog rose, there burst on the eager gaze of the voyageurs the shining expanse of the Pacific.  The shouts of the jubilant voyageurs mingled with the roar of ocean breakers.  Like Alexander Mackenzie of the far North a decade before, Lewis and Clark had reached the long-sought Western Sea.  They had been first up the Missouri, first across the middle Rockies, and first down the Columbia to the Pacific.