Peter knew them all; fine men; but he liked Pat and George Shannon the best.
Then, there were the Frenchmen: gay old Cruzatte, with his one eye and his lively fiddle; Francois Labiche, the boatman who danced on his head; Baptiste Lepage, who joined at the Mandan villages to take the place of one Liberté who had run away; George Drouillard, the hunter; Chaboneau and Sa-ca-ja-we-a, the Bird-woman, who was to help the party into the mountains and make friends of the Snakes. And little Toussaint, the beady-eyed baby――a great pet.
And York, black, enormous York, the great medicine, whom all the Indians so highly respected.
Yes, this was a glorious company, from which a boy might learn much.
So, in a line, the eight boats proceeded up the Missouri, through present North Dakota. The wind blew sometimes fair, sometimes adverse; sometimes so strong that it lifted the fine sand in dense clouds above the river and the men’s eyes were made sore. Captain Lewis’s tightly-cased watch stopped and would not run.
At the end of the first week, when the night’s camp was breaking up, for the day’s journey, George Shannon espied a black animal slinking through the grass.
“Wolf!” uttered Pat. “An’ a black wan, for the captains’ collection. Wait till I draw a bead on him.”
“No! That’s a dog, Pat!” And George whistled. “Don’t shoot.”
The black animal crept toward George, stomach to earth, tail wagging.
“Assiniboine dog,” pronounced Chaboneau. “He sled dog. Draw ze sled in winter, an’ ze travois――ze lodge pole, in summer. He from dat ol’ camp we see yesterday. Mus’ be los’, poor leetle dog.”
“He’s only a puppy, and nigh starved,” said George, patting him.
So the black shaggy little dog was taken along.
That night at camp Lepage and Chaboneau consulted together.
“I never been up-river furder dan dees,” announced Baptiste. “I t’ink once I stop right at dees spot, an’ turn back. Chaboneau, he stop once ’bout t’ree mile below.”
“Then it’s our own trail from here on,” spoke John Shields.
Where North Dakota and Montana meet, George Drouillard was sent out to explore south up the Yellowstone River. He returned with report of many sand-bars and much coal.
Beyond the mouth of the Yellowstone, in the morning of October 26, while the boats were slowly sailing on up the Missouri, Captain Lewis suddenly appeared, at a clear spot on the bank, and signaled with a rifle-shot.