“If we stay looking longer,” he said, “we’ll starve. I’ll tote these as far as I can, Peter; and you can tote ’em as far as _you_ can. Between us we’ll manage, for the cap’n’s got to have his saddle bags.”
That _was_ a journey! They struggled all day. The saddle bags, vowed Reuben, gasping, weighed a ton――and what a ton might be, Peter did not know, but at any rate it must be very heavy. Only toward late afternoon did they sight, below and ahead, the captain’s party, on the edge of a plain――_the_ plain.
The party were moving briskly, as if encouraged. The captain was in advance. Reuben and Peter quickened at their best. Would they never overtake the other men?
“Smoke, ain’t it, yonder?” panted Reuben.
“Pierced Nose village, maybe, Reuben,” answered Peter.
“Don’t I see Joe, with that crowd? Yes, and a strange Injun, too!” panted Reuben.
They hastened, dragging their numb legs, and lugging those saddle bags. The party saw them, and halted; gave them a cheer.
“Bully for yez!” greeted Pat. “We’ve arriv, in a land o’ plenty, ’mongst the Pierced Noses. Yez are in time.”
Reuben saluted the captain, who had turned back.
“The saddle bags, Cap’n, but we lost the hosses again.”
“You’ve done well, both of you, lads,” praised the captain. “Joe’s brought us some fish and roots, from Captain Clark. He’s waiting close ahead, with the Pierced Noses. Get on a horse, each of you, and eat as you ride. I think our troubles are over.”
Within an hour they all were at the village of the Pierced Noses, here on the open, fertile prairie of the kamass roots that tasted like pumpkin; and Captain Clark and Chief Twisted-hair made them all welcome.
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-koos-kee. 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.