Page:The Conquest.djvu/187

 Louis.

Behind them a huge raft,—

"From the Pawnees on the Platte!"

And yet behind three other rafts, piled, heaped, and laden to the water's edge,—

"From the Grand Osage!"

Such alone was greeting and farewell, as the barks, unable to be checked, went spinning down the water.

What a gala for the winter-bound trapper! Home again! home again! flying down the wild Missouri in the mad June rise! They stopped not to camp or to hunt, but skimming the wave, fairly flew to St. Louis. They came, those swift-gliding boats, like visions of another world, the world Lewis and Clark were about to enter.

June 5, two more canoes flashed by with beaver,—

"From eighty leagues up the Kansas river!"

June 8, boats with beaver and otter slid by, and rafts of furs and buffalo tallow,—

"From the Sioux nation!"

Dorion, an old Frenchman on a Sioux raft, engaged to go back with Lewis and Clark to interpret for them the language of his wife's relations.

A thousand miles against the current! Now and then a southwest wind would fill out the big square-cut sail and send the heavy barge ploughing steadily up. Again, contrary winds kept them on the walking boards all day long, with heads bent low over the setting-pole.

Warm and warmer grew the days. Some of the men were sunstruck. The glitter of sun on the water inflamed their eyes. Some broke out with painful boils, and mosquitoes made night a torture.

Now and then they struck a sand-bar, and leaping into the water the voyageurs ran along shore with the cordelle on their shoulders, literally dragging the great boat into safety.

"Mon cher Captinne! de win' she blow lak' hurricane!" cried the voyageurs.

Down came the prairie gale, almost a tornado, snapping the timber on the river-banks, and lashing the water to waves that surged up, over, and into the boats. The sky bent black above them, the fierce wind how