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 XXI

THE HOME STRETCH

Captain Clark was safe and well, with all his men, and only a short distance down river! This was learned the next day from two white trappers—the first Americans met in over a year. Their names were Hancock and Dickson. They had left Illinois, of the United States, in the summer of 1804, and had been trapping in the upper Missouri country ever since.

They said that Captain Clark's party had passed them yesterday, but had lost all the horses, by Indians, and were traveling in two wooden canoes and two hide canoes. The captain had the idea that Captain Lewis and party were ahead of him.

Trappers Hancock and Dickson had other news, also. They had seen the barge, under Corporal Warfington, on its way from Fort Mandan, last summer, to St. Louis. All aboard were well. Brave Raven, the Arikara chief, was there, bound for Washington; and so were several Yankton Sioux chiefs, with old Pierre Dorion. But the Mandans and Minnetarees were at war with the Arikaras; and the Mandans and the Assiniboines were at war, too; and the Sioux were "bad." So that the peace talks by the captains had not buried the hatchet very deep.