The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-05-04
Theodosia Burr

many Of minerals and earths. weapons of the Indians, examples of their cloth ing, specimens of the corn and other vegetables which they raised, horns of the bighorn and the antelope-both ami mals then new to science-antlers of the deer and elk, stuffed specimens, dried skins, herbs, fruits, flowers. and with all these the broken story of a new geography greatest story ever sent out for publication by any man or men, and all done in Homeric sim plicity.
 As the great barge had started down the river the two pirogues which had come so far, joined by the cottonwood dugouts laboriously fabricated during the winter months, had started up the river manned by thirty one men.
 With the pick of the original party there had come but one woman, the girl Sacajawea, with her little baby, born that winter at the Mandan fort ress. Sacajawea now had her place in the camp. She and her infant were the pets of all. She sat in the sunlight. her baby in her lap, by her side an Indian dog, waif which Lewis had found abandoned in an Indian encamp ment and which had attached itself to him.
 Sacajawea smiled as the tall form of the captain came toward her. She had already learned some of the words of his tongue, he some of hers. (Which way, Sacajawea?' asked Meriwether Lewis. What river is this which goes on to the left?" "Him Ro'shone," replied the girl. My man call him that No good! Him-big river" and she pointed to- ward the right hand stream
 "As I thought, Will," said Lewis, holding. And again to the Indian girl, "Do you remember this placer She nodded her head vigorously and smiled. "Seew With a pointed stick she began to sketch a map on the sand of the river bar, showing how the Yellowstone flow ed from the south-how, far on ahead, | its upper course bent toward the Mis- sourf, with march of not more than a day between the two. The maps of this new world that first came back to | civilization were copies of Indians drawings made with a pointed stick upon the earth or with a coal on a whitened hide.
 "She knows, Will" said Lewis. ''See this place she marks near the noun. tain summit, where the two streams are close. Some time we must explore that crossingp'
 | "Pm sure I'd rather trust her maI than this one here of old Jonathan Carver" answered Clark, the map mak CT. His idea of this country is that four great rivers head about where we are now. He marks the river Bourbon (Which I never heard of-as running north to Hudson bay, but he has the St. Lawrence rising near here, too, an6 it must be 1,5O0 or 2O0O miles off te the east! The Mississippi, too, he thinks, heads about here, at the moutf of the Yellowstone, and yonder runs the Oregon river, which I presume, t the Columbia river. Iris all very sim lple, on Carver's maps, but perhaps no quite so easy, if we follow that ol Sacajawea. This country is wider thar any of us ever dreamed"
 And greater and more beautiful il every way" assented his companion.
 They stood and gazed about them a the scene of wild beauty. The rive
 ran in long curves between bold an
 sculptured bluffs, among groves of n'
 tive trees. now softly green. Abov
 on the prairies, lay carpet of the sh
 wild rose, most beautiful of the pra
 Tie blossoms. All about were shrut
 and flowers, now putting forth the
 claims in the renewed life of spring.
 On the plains fed the buffalo, far {
 the eye could reach. Antelope, dee
 the shy bighorn, all these might I
 seen, and the footprints of the gial
 bears along the beaches. It was u
 wilderness, and it was theirs. The
 owned it all!
 Thus far they had seen no sign (
 any human occupancy. They did nt
 meet single human being, red (
 white, all that summer. A vast silen unclaimed land, beautiful and abount
 ing, lay waiting for occupancy. Thel
 was no map of it, none save that wri
 ten on the soil now and then by an Il
 dian girl sixteen years of age.
 They plodded on now, taking stf
 right hand stream, with full confidene
 in their guidance, forging onward
 little every day between the hie
 banks of the swift river that can
 down from the great mountains. Apr passed and May.
 Soon we see the mounta nSr' inSiS ed Sacajawea.
 And at last, two months out fro the Mandans, Lewis looked westwaI from little eminence and saw a loy
 broken line, white in spots, not to confused with the lesser eminences { the nearby landscape.
 "It is the mountainsp' he exclaime
 sThere lie the Stonies! They do exis
 Gro be continued.)