Hooray for the Pacific!

How beautiful was this broad prairie beyond the mountains, here where lived the Cho-pun-nish or Pierced Nose. Indians while they caught salmon in the rivers and the women dug the kamass roots! But the fish and the roots were given so generously that all the party were made ill.

The village was near the banks of the Koos-kooskee. Twisted-hair, who was the head chief, drew a map with charcoal on a white robe. He showed that not far below, the Koos-koos-kee joined another river, and that this river joined another river from the north, and the two combined flowed west to the big water.

"Tirn-tim-m-m-m!" crooned all the Indians, imitating the noise of some great falls that would be met. From the region of these falls and below, came the beads and the brass ornaments traded to Indians by white men.

'Twas time to change from horses to canoes again. Five canoes were hollowed by fire from tree trunks—for only a few of the men were strong enough to swing an adze. All the horses were branded with the army brand which bore the name "Capt. M. Lewis, U. S.," and left in charge of the Pierced Noses. Chief Twisted-hair promised that the horses should be well taken care of, and would be waiting when the white men asked for them again.

"Well, I for one am glad to be away," said George Shannon, when in the morning of October 7 the canoes, laden and manned, their oar-blades flashing, headed into mid-stream. "These Nez Perces are a good people—'bout the best looking Injuns we've seen—but they're mighty independent. They don't give anything for nothing."

"No. And they even hold us to small account because we eat dogs," quoth Joe Fields. "But if a man wants meat, in their village, it's eat fish, hoss or dog—an' dog's the only stuff with any strength."

That was true. Lacking better meat, the captains finally were buying the Pierced Noses' work-dogs—for dog-meat had been found good, back at the Sioux camps on the Missouri. Brouillard and Cruzatte and the other Frenchmen preferred it even to deer. But the Pierced Noses sneered at the white "dog-eaters."

Why they were called "Pierced Noses "nobody could tell. However, old Toby claimed that below there were other, real Pierced Noses, and also real Flat-heads.

Chief Twisted-hair and a second chief, Tetoh, were aboard the captains' canoe, to help the white men pass through the other villages, into the "Tim-tim-m-m "river.

As for old Toby and his son, on the third day out, during a halt they suddenly were espied running away at top speed, and did not so much as turn their heads.

"They're leaving without their pay! Send and get them, so we can pay them," cried Captain Lewis.

Chaboneau grinned.

Dey 'fraid of ze tim-tim rapids. Ze chief say no use to pay dem, anyhow. His people take ever't'ing from dem when dey go t'rough village."

Down, down, down with the swift current. The Koos-koos-kee joined the other river, which, the captains figured, was the same river on whose head-waters, far, far eastward, the camp of Chief Ca-me-ah-wait and his Snakes had been located. The Lewis River did they name it, but on modern maps it is the Snake.

Now on down, down, down the rushing Snake. There were rapids, where once or twice a canoe or two was wrecked; but this sort of travel was easier than travel over the mountains, and easier than travel up stream. Many Indians were seen, fishing for the salmon. They were friendly, and much astonished. They sent runners to other villages, below, telling of the coming of white men; sometimes Chiefs Twisted-hair and Tetoh also ran ahead, along the!bank, that the Indians might be ready. And on shore the Indian women made much of Sa-ca-ja-we-a and little Toussaint.

"If these white stravel with a woman and a baby, they cannot be a war party," reasoned the Indians.

Down, down; until soon after dinner, on October 16, this 1805, the course of another large river, coming in from the north, was sighted before. The Columbia! It must be the Columbia, at last! Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! Old Cruzatte, in the leading canoe, struck up a gay French boat-song; Drouillard and Lepage and Labiche and Chaboneau chimed in. Faster flashed the paddles.

"We'll land yonder," shouted Captain Lewis, pointing to the right. "At the junction. A lot of Indians seem to be waiting for us."

"Thanks to Twisted-hair," jubilated Pat. "Sure, I see him—an' the other wan, too. When they left they said they'd meet us at the Tim-tim, didn't they? An' it's a big river, by the looks."

A great throng of Indians collected by Chiefs Twisted-hair and Tetoh had collected on the shore just above where the two rivers joined. A council, opened by a procession with drums, was held. These were Sokulk Indians. They clamed to be kins-folk of the Twisted-hair Pierced Noses, but their foreheads were flattened back so that their heads ended in a peak, and therefore they were more like Flat-heads. They were kind—and not very attractive, because their eyes were sore from water glare and sun glare, and their teeth were bad from eating fish and roots.

Yes, this was the Columbia. The two captains measured it, and the Snake. The width of the Snake was 575 yards, but the width of the Columbia was 96o yards.

"A noble stream," remarked Captain Lewis. "I wonder how far to the north it penetrates."

"Did you ever see so many fish, dead and alive, in all your life, Meme?" exclaimed Captain Clark. "Why, the water swarms with them, and I understand that the Indians use dried ones for fuel."

"We'll buy more dogs, nevertheless, Will," smiled Captain Lewis. "The men can't row and make portages on fish flesh alone."

A day and a half was spent with the curious Sokulks, here where in southeastern Washington the Snake River unites with the mighty Columbia, in the midst of a flat and pleasant plain. On October 18 the five canoes swept out and down the Columbia itself.

"How far now, Pat?" asked Peter. "To the big ocean?"

"Thirty-siven hunderd miles have we come, by the captains' reckonin'," answered Pat. "An' belike 'tis four hunderd more to the Paycific."

"What do we do then, Pat?"

"If there aren't anny ships we'll have to stay the winter. An' in the spring, barrin' better luck, 'tis back we track over the four thausan' moils ag'in."

From the Sokuiks had been procured another map, of the Columbia. It showed many bad places—rapids and falls. Around some of these the canoes had to be carried; through others they had to be hauled by hand, or carefully lowered with ropes. The Indians ashore seemed very timid, and hid.

Captain Clark returned in high humor, from a walk ahead with Chaboneau and Sa-ca-ja-we-a, and Chiefs Twisted-hair and Tetoh. He had shot a white crane, and a teal duck, and then had entered an Indian house that had been closed against him. The Indians had bowed before him, and covered their heads. When he had lighted his peace-pipe with his sun-glass, they had cried aloud in terror.

"They thought me a god, Merne," he laughed. "They had heard the gun, had seen the two birds drop, and believed that I had dropped, too. When I brought fire out of the sky, that finished the business. But I quieted them with presents."

However, near the mouth of a river, Chief Yellept of the Walla Walla Indians welcomed the white men, and wished them to stay. Captain Lewis said that they would visit him on their way back.

Chiefs Twisted-hair and Tetoh were sent ahead again, to assure the Indians that the white men intended no harm.

The first big falls, reached on October 23, were not the Tim-tim. The Tim-tim was still below. But Chief Twisted-hair said that the Indians down there were strangers to him, and unfriendly. He had heard that they were planning to attack the white men. And as he could not speak their language he wished to return to his own people.

He was persuaded to stay—and Tetoh also—until the passage of the Tim-tim.

These first falls or rapids were very difficult; but the captains and old Cruzatte consulted together, and decided to run them with the boats.

"If ever'body follow me an' do as I do, we get t'rough," promised Cruzatte, head boatman.

So, with Cruzatte leading, down through the wild channel of the first rapids in the Dalles of the Columbia raced the canoes. And from the rocky shores the Eneeshur Indians opened their mouths wide in astonishment.

"The Irish an' Frinch together can lick the world," boasted Pat.

But the place of Tim-tim, or "Timm," for short, was close ahead. It was reached the next evening, and they camped above it, at a village of the Echeloots, or Chinook Indians, who also flattened their hats, and spoke more cluckingly than did even the Oo-tla-shoots.

They were the enemies of the Pierced Noses, but they agreed upon peace, in a council with Chief Twisted-hair. Now, after a final "smoke," Chiefs Twisted-hair and Tetoh left, on horses, for their home. They had been good and faithful guides.

The place of Timm, at the foot of the Dalles of the Columbia, is to-day called the Long Narrows. It was three miles long and in some stretches only fifty yards wide. But the canoes, guided by Cruzatte, went through without one being wrecked. They had been badly battered, however, by the many rocks; and the next day was spent in caulking them. That night Cruzatte brought out his fiddle, a dance was held, about the fire, and the Echeloots appeared much entertained.

In the middle of the night, soon after the camp had gone to bed, Peter was awakened by Pat's suddenly squirming out of the blanket.

"The fleas are 'atin' me entoirely," declared Pat. "Into the river goes ivery stitch o' me clothes."

Peter was glad to follow the example. By morning nearly all the men were stripped, and needs must stalk about in blankets while their clothing was being cleaned.

"'Twas the mosquitoes east of the mountains," laughed George Shannon. "Now 'tis the fleas west of the mountains."

But the fleas were a slight matter, when amidst grand scenery the Columbia River ever bore the canoes onward, toward the ocean and the end of the long, long journey.

After the Echeloots (whom the violin and the dancing had so entertained), more Indians were met. The banks of this Columbia were thickly populated. These Indians lived in wooden houses, too—houses walled and raftered with planks faced and trimmed by fire or by knives and little axes. The houses were furnished with bedsteads.

"As good houses as some settlers' houses back in the Illinois country," declared Captain Clark, who was constantly exploring among them.

The canoes that the Indians cleverly managed were large, hollowed from a single log, with high bows curving upward; farther on down, bows and sterns both were high, and had figures of men and beasts. Some of the Indians owned articles of white men's manufacture, which they said came from below.

"What you say dese hyar Injuns call demselves, Marse Will?" York was heard to ask.

"Skilloots, York."

"An' what were dose we met 'foh we met dese Galoots?"

"The Chilluckittequaws, York."

"Jes' so," gasped York. "But ain't gwine to say it."

On November 2 the canoes were partly carried around, partly slid through, the rapids which formed the foot of other rapids termed by the captains the Great Shute. Presently the river opened two miles wide, and smooth and placid. That night the water rose nine inches on a stake set at the river's edge in front of the camp.

"We're in tidewater, lads!" announced Captain Lewis. "The ocean tides ascend this far. That means there are no more rapids; the ocean itself can't be very distant."

Each night after this a stake was set out and the rise measured. Each day the 'men sniffed for the smell of salt water and listened for the sound of the surf. Sa-ca-ja-we-a was very much excited; she had come especially to see the big water.

During the night of November 4 the rise from the tide was two feet; the next night's rise was four feet. Ducks and geese were many. But it rained almost every day, and every morning a fog hung low.

On the morning of November 7 the camp rose and breakfasted in a wet mist so dense that it hung on all sides like a gray curtain.

"At this rate," quoth Pat, as the canoes headed out into the silence, "we're liable to get half way to Chiny afore we know we're on the Paycific at all."

"I do believe I smell salt, though," asserted George Shannon, sniffing. "Sa-ca-ja-we-a's been insisting, too, that she could hear a 'boom-boom."

"Listen!" bade Pat—and they paused on their oars. Peter thought that he also could hear a "boom-boom," low and dull, but he wasn't certain. They went on.

The captains' boat was being piloted by a Wahkia-cum Indian, now: a squat ugly man who wore a queer round jacket that, according to the men, had come from a ship. The river was growing wider, the fog was thinning and lifting—on a sudden the crew of the captains' boat waved their hats, pointed before, cheered wildly. The cheer passed from boat to boat. For the fog ahead had swirled into fragments, and below it was an expanse of tumbling gray water on which the sun was trying to shine. Occasionally sounded a muffled "boom," like the faint growl of summer thunder.

The Pacific Ocean! But they did not reach it this day; the fog closed in again, and the rain. They did not reach it the next day, although the waves were so high in this, the mouth of the Columbia, that half the party were seasick; and the water was salty. They did not reach it the next day, nor the next. Wind and rain kept beating them back. Sa-ca-ja-we-a was frightened.

"The spirits are angry. They do not want us here," she whimpered, crouching over little Toussaint, under a grass mat raised on a pole.

"The only way we'll reach the sea is to be washed into it," groaned Pat. "Sure, don't the very stones an' logs come a-rollin' down the hills? Now for the first time I wish I hadn't started, an' here I am at the ind!"

Yes, miserable were they all. There was no chance to dry clothing and food, and scarcely an opportunity to stir. The mouth of the river formed a wind-swept bay miles wide. The captains thought that if camp might only be moved around a point ahead, and to a high sand beach, it would be more comfortable. A deserted Indian village stood there, with no inhabitants "except fleas "; and, as Pat said: "We'll be all the warmer for the exercise they give us."

Not until the afternoon of November 15 did the opportunity to move come. The sky cleared, the wind suddenly dropped; the canoes were reloaded in a hurry, and the point was rounded.

Now the ocean was in full sight, outside the bay; from the boards of the Indian houses rude cabins were erected; hunters and explorers were sent out.