Page:California Digital Library (IA openingwestwithl00sabirich).pdf/197

 and ten other men, and started over the mountains to explore beyond the Snake village, in hopes of finding a route by water. They were to send back a man to the Snake village, to meet Captain Lewis there and tell him what had been discovered.

Chief Ca-me-ah-wait and all his people except two men and two women started also for the village, with Sa-ca-ja-we-a and Chaboneau, to bring down horses, for Captain Lewis.

Everybody in the camp was put at work making pack-saddles from oar handles and pieces of boxes tied firmly with raw-hide! Out of sight of the Indians a hole was dug in which to cache more of the baggage, especially the specimens that had been collected.

Five horses were purchased, at six dollars each in trade; the canoes were sunk by rocks in the bottom of the river—and the Snakes promised not to disturb them, while the white men were away. On August 24 the march was begun for the village on the other slope of what are to-day the Bitter Root Mountains. The five horses were packed with the supplies; Sa-ca-ja-we-a and little Toussaint rode on a sixth horse that Chaboneau had bought.

Although this was August, the evenings and nights were so cold that the ink froze on the pens when the journals were being written. The village was reached in the late afternoon of August 26. John Colter was here, waiting. He brought word from Captain Clark that canoes would be of no use; the country ahead was