The Captains Show their Spunk

Peter believed that the Omaha woman spoke the truth. The captains ought to be told at once. But the dancing was still in progress in the lodge of Chief Black Buffalo, where sat the two captains and the chiefs, watching. A boy would not be admitted. So Peter sought out Sergeant John Ordway, who was in charge of the shore guard. John Ordway was not from Kentucky; he was from a place called New Hampshire, in the northeast of the United States.

"You don't say!" replied John Ordway, when Peter had told him of the warning from the Omaha woman. "Well, anybody might suspect as much. I'll get word to the captains, first chance."

The dancing continued until late, again. Peter curled in the bows of the waiting pirogue, and went to sleep. He had done his duty and could trust to John Ordway. By the stars it was midnight when he awakened at the approach of the captains. They and two Indian guests and the guard clambered in, and the pirogue was rowed for the barge.

The shore was silent and dark—but how alert were those Sioux! The pirogue ran against the anchor cable of the barge, in the darkness, and broke it. The barge was adrift. The captains cried loudly, ordering the oars to be manned and the barge held until a cable could be passed ashore—and instantly the two Indians in the pirogue shouted excitedly, in the Sioux tongue, summoning the village.

"Here! Quick!" they called. "To the boats! Come!"

The whole village burst into an uproar; the warriors poured forth to the water's edge. It was very plain that they feared the white men were leaving. The captains could pay little attention until a cable had been carried from the barge and fastened to a tree on the bank, and the barge pulled in out of the current. Then

"Ask Tor-to-hon-ga what's the meaning of all this alarm," bade Captain Lewis, tersely, of Drouillard. Tor-to-hon-ga was one of the two guests.

"He say de Tetons 'fraid de 'Maha warriors haf come up an' attack de boats of de great white father," interpreted Drouillard.

"Nonsense!" muttered Captain Lewis.

And anybody might see how foolish was this excuse of the Tetons: that the Omahas would attack boats defended by guns, when the Sioux were the real enemies. After the village was quiet again, at least sixty Teton warriors remained there on the bank, all night, ready for action.

"I fink," commented Drouillard, "mebbe we have leetle trouble, in mornin'" "We're in a bad box," quoth Sergeant Ordway. "Now we're tied up close to the bank, under direct fire. We may have a hard time casting off."

Strong guards were kept under arms, on all the boats. There was little sleep. Both captains were constantly about, peering through the darkness, and listening. Early in the morning the Tetons were assembled; and while Patrick Gass and a detail were dragging from a pirogue, trying to find the barge's anchor, several chiefs and warriors waded out to the barge and climbed aboard.

The anchor could not be found.

"Never mind," said Captain Lewis. "We'll go on without it. Send those fellows ashore, Will. Sergeant Pryor, take a squad with you and cast off that rope."

The Indian visitors did not wish to go ashore, but Captain Clark ordered them pushed into the pirogue which was to bear Sergeant Pryor and squad. Chief Black Buffalo still refused to go. Sergeant Pryor released the rope from the tree on the bank and returned. The sail on the barge was being hoisted—and at the instant laughter and shouts mingled, both ashore and from the boats.

A number of the Sioux had sat upon the rope, holding it!

Captain Lewis flared into hot rage.

"Take charge of the pirogues, Will," he ordered. "Down behind the gunwale, men. Advance your rifles. See that the priming's fresh, Ordway and Gass. Stand to your swivel, Willard!" And, to Chief Blacc Buffalo: "My young men are ready for battle. If your young men do not release the rope we will fire."

"He say de young men want leetle more tobac'," translated Drouillard.

"Tell him we have given all the presents that we're going to give," crisply answered Captain Lewis. "No wait. Here!" And snatching a roll of tobacco, Captain Lewis threw it at Black Buffalo's feet. "Tell him there is his tobacco, on the prairie. He says he is a great chief. Among the white men great chiefs are obeyed. If he is a great chief let him order his young men to release that rope and they will obey him. But we do not believe he is a great chief. He is a squaw, and the young men laugh at him."

"Wah!" grunted Chief Black Buffalo, when he heard. He seized the tobacco and leaped from the boat, to surge for the shore. There he tumbled his young men right and left, snatched the rope and hurled it out into the water.

"Go," he bawled. Thus he proved himself to be the great chief.

The soldiers cheered. The barge's sail caught the breeze, the barge moved. Just in time Captain Clark leaped from the pirogue, into which he had transferred, and gained the gunwale, and the deck.

"Well done, Merne," he panted. "Golly!" babbled York. "Dat chief mighty brash when he get started."

The barge and the pirogues gained the middle of the river. Rapidly the Teton village was left behind. Patrick Gass waved his hat derisively.

"Bad luck to yez," he said. "Sure, an' if we'd stayed a minute longer we'd ha' put your town into mournin'. We're not so paceful as we look." And he added: "The 'Rikaras nixt. We'll hope they be gintlemen. Annyhow, we've no horses left for 'em to stale."

Just what was to be expected from the Arikaras nobody might say, but although they were warlike they were thought to be not so mean as the Teton Sioux. The boats forged on, and the month changed to that of October.

"How far to the 'Rikara villages, sir?" asked Captain Lewis, of a trader named Valle who came aboard the barge for a talk.

"By river about 100 miles, captain."

From an excursion ashore with Captain Clark and squad, York returned tremendously excited.

"We done found one o' dem white b'ars," proclaimed York. "Yessuh, me an' Marse Will. Oof!" "Where'bouts, York?"

"Whar's his scalp?"

"Did you get a shot at him?"

Questions were volleyed thick and fast. York wagged his woolly head and rolled his eyes. "Nossuh. Didn't get no shot at him. We des seen his track, in dem bushes yonduh near de mout' ab de ribber. Oof! Marse Will he set his moccasin cl'ar inside, an' dat track it stuck out all 'round. 'Spec' dis chile ain't got bus'ness wif dem critters. Oof!"

"Yes," agreed George Shannon. "According to Drouillard even the Indians won't tackle one of those white bears, except in a crowd of six or eight. And if they don't shoot him through the head or heart he's liable to out-fight them all. Before they go after him they make big medicine, same as if they were going to war with a whole nation."

"He's 'special fond of black meat, too, I hear tell," slyly remarked John Thompson.

York rolled his eyes, and muttered. But the Kentuckians, some of whom had hunted with Daniel Boone, fingered their rifles eagerly and surveyed the low country at the mouth of the river, as if hoping to see York's monster stirring.

The next day the first Ankara Indians came aboard, from their lower village. Captain Lewis went with some of them to return the visit. He was accompanied back by Mr. Tabeau and Mr. Gravelines, two French traders who lived with the Arikaras. Mr. Gravelines spoke the Ankara language.

There were three Ankara villages, so that the captains ordered camp made on the north side of the river, across from the villages.

The Arikaras were tall, handsome people—much superior, thought Patrick Gass and the rest of the men, to the Sioux. Chiefs Ka-ka-wis-sas-sa or Lighting Crow, Fo-cas-se or Hay, and Pi-a-he-to or Eagle's Feather, were introduced by Mr. Gravelines, and the camp soon filled with the Arikara warriors, and even squaws who rowed across in little skin boats of a single buffalo hide stretched over basket-work.

York held a regular reception, for he appeared to astonish the Arikaras as much as he had astonished the Sioux.

"Hey, Marse Tabeau," he called, to the French trader. "Des tell dese people I'se bohn wil', an' my young marster done ketched me when I was runnin' in de timber an' tamed me. Tell 'em I used to eat peoples bones an' all. I'se a sorter griller." And thereupon York seized a thick stick, and snapped it in his two hands, and howled and gritted his teeth. He was very strong, was York.

"Huh!" grunted the Arikaras, respectfully falling back from him.

"That will do, York," cautioned Captain Clark, trying not to laugh.

But York, of much importance, thoroughly enjoyed himself.

The Arikaras were splendid entertainers and exceedingly hospitable—" ' Mos' like white folks," asserted York. They did not beg, as the Sioux had begged; they gave lavishly out of their store of corn and beans and dried squashes, and accepted thankfully the gifts from the great father; they would not drink any whisky—" We are surprised that the great father should send us liquor to make fools of us," said Chief Lighting Crow. Their houses were built close together, of a willow frame plastered with mud, and were entered through a covered passage-way that kept out the wind. Around each village was a fence of close upright pickets, for defense. They were well armed, too, with guns.

When it came time, after the councils had been held, to leave the friendly Arikaras, all the men of the expedition hated to go. John Newman, who had enlisted at St. Louis, was the most out-spoken.

"Look here," he uttered, boldly, among his comrades at the last camp fire. "Why should we go on, up to those Mandans? Why can't we spend the winter where we are? The Mandan village is nigh on 200 miles yet, and I'm tired of working my hands raw in this cold weather, hauling the boats over sand-bars."

"Orders be orders," reminded Patrick Gass. "An' up to the Mandans we go, I'm thinkin'."

"Not if we show a little spunk and say we want to stay," retorted John.

"Whisht, now!" cautioned Patrick. "Would ye spoil a good record? Faith," he added, "if the captain heard ye he'll have ye on the carpet for mutiny, b' gorry." Captain Clark had strode hastily by, wrapped in his cloak. "It's mutiny ye're talkin','' scolded Patrick Gass. "An' I want no more of it." Captain Clark had heard, for at breaking camp in the morning, John was placed under arrest and confined in the forecastle aboard the barge.

That night, at camp, twenty-five miles above the Arikara villages, a court-martial was held on the case of John Newman. He was found guilty of mutinous speech and sentenced to received seventy-five lashes, and be suspended from the company. The next noon the boats stopped in the rain, at a sand-bar in the middle of the river, everybody was ordered out, and John was roundly whipped on the naked back with ramrods and switches.

Chief Ah-ke-tah-na-sha of the Arikaras, who was going with the expedition up to the Mandans, to make peace between the Mandans and the Arikaras, squatted on the sand-bar, to watch. Evidently he did not understand, for he began to weep.

"Why does Ah-ke-tah-na-sha cry?" asked Captain Clark.

Ah-ke-tah-na-sha, who could speak some Sioux, explained to Drouillard, and Drouillard explained to the captains.

"He say de 'Rikara dey punish by death, but dey never whip even de children. He weep for Newman."

"Tell him what the matter is, and that this is the white man's way of punishing disobedience," directed Captain Clark, to Drouillard.

Drouillard did; and reported.

"He say mebbe so, but 'mong Injuns to whip men no make women of dem. If dees is white man way, all right. Men ought to obey deir chiefs."

"Now aren't ye 'shamed o' yourself, when even an Injun cries over ye?" reproved Patrick Gass, of John Newman, who was painfully donning his shirt and coat.

"Well, I am," admitted John. "I guess I deserved what I got. I don't harbor any grudge, and I'll do my duty."