Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-07-27

that the white men were in the care of some
Great Spirit. Another drudging portage past
the Cascades, and at last the voyagers were on
the full bosom of the mighty stream
Entering the rivers mouth, sea winds and
waves tossed the frail canoes until it seemed
that all must perish. For six days they hud-
died in the rain, waiting to round point, and
it was not until November Is that they rowed
past the future site of Astoria and, after wan
dering, pitched their Winter quarters on a cliff
among the pines Well were they entitled to
rest their weary bones after journey Of Abs
miles, the Homeric march that opened the half
of a continent to settlement and added two
stars to the flag. Capt. Robert Gray had dis
covered the Columbia in 1892 naming it after
his ship but it was Lewis and Clark's explora-
tions that confirmed title to the territory
out of which we shaped Washington and Ore
gon. Sacajawea, to whom SO much of the
credit was due, asked but one favor; she
begged to be taken down to the ocean shore
that she might see the great Everywhere
Saltwater.
Instead Of rest, however, drudgery and suf-
fering pressed still more heavily on the expe-
dition. The rain came down in torrents; game
spoiled before the exhausted hunters could
get it back to camp, salt boiling a SLOW
laboriouS process, and by the time the two
captains finished their various scientific OBJ
servations in late March. the sickening men
were without food and also stripped bare of
everything that could be used in barter Capt.
Lewis parted with his uniform coat to secure
a necessary canoe, and as the company started
on its homeward journey they resembled trav-
cling mountebanks more than the heroic van
guard of civilization.
SLOWLY, wretchedly, they assembled the
Columbia, portaging past cascades Dalles
and falls and in May came again to the lovely
Kamas plain where old Chief Twisted Hair
and his Neg Perces waited with their horses.
June found the expedition afiame with i'm
patience and, despite the warning of the In
dams, the pathfinders marched away to the
pass that led across the Bitter Root Range. All
too late they realized that Twisted Hair had
been right; snow choked the trails, storms
froze and blinded them and it was only Lewis
and Clark luck" that let them regain the
shelter of the Nez Perez camp instead of per-
1Shing in the mountains. Even when they set
out again the snow was still deep enough to
make every mile a peril, but at last they
crossed over and stumbled down into the Mis-
soula Plain.
Here the expedition made its first important
division, for time pressed, and there was still
much to do. Lewis with nine men was to strike
out on a straight line for the Great Falls of
the Missouri, proceeding from that point to
the headwaterS of Maria's River. Clark and
his party were to go down the Jefferson to the
Three Forks and then on to the Yellowstone
for an exploration of that unknown stream
Lewis, crossing the Divide, reached the Great
Falls without mishap and, leaving six men to
prepare the portage, started up Marla'S River
with only Drewyer and the two Fields brothers.
Through a barren land, thick with savages
the four rode on--eating the grease pressed
from tainted meat-only turning back at a
point not far below the present Canadian line.
Now luck deserted Them for out of the hills
rode a party of Blackfeet, cruel and
treacherouS. There was much Specious talk all
day and long into the night, but the white men
were not thrown of their guard, and when the
Indians snatched at their rifles in the early
dawn indomitable Reuben Fields stabbed one
T,ont;nUed m, T,,ont, 6ret por..