The mosquitoes and flies bothered. The shores grew rougher, and higher, until at one spot the river boiled down, 150 paces wide, through a gap in solid cliffs 1200 feet high, black granite below, creamy yellow above. The channel was too deep for wading, or for the poles; and the boats were rowed, a few inches at a time, with the oars. This gap was named the Gate of the Mountains.
“I told you we’d find a gate,” reminded Pat, to Peter. “Now what’s inside, an’ where be the Snakes?”
For this was the Sho-sho-ne country, at last. The Sho-sho-nes were horse Indians. The captains counted on getting horses from them, and leaving the canoes. The firing of guns was limited, lest the Snakes should hear and be alarmed. Indian trails and abandoned camps were passed. The snowy range of the Shining Mountains was nearer, in the west. Captain Clark took Chaboneau and Joe Fields and York and John Potts, and set out ahead, by land, to find some Indians, if possible.
Sa-ca-ja-we-a began to remark familiar places, where she and other Sho-sho-ne women had been, before she was captured by the Minnetarees. Now little flags were hoisted on the canoes, to tell the Sho-sho-nes that the United States soldiers were coming in peace.
“Soon de river make t’ree forks, Sa-ca-ja-we-a say,” informed old Cruzatte, at the evening camp after Captain Clark had been gone almost nine days.
“An’ which is the trail then, I wonder,” mused Sergeant Pat. “Sure we ought to be crossin’ the mountains before we get much furder south. It’s near August, already.”
At breakfast time the next morning, July 27, the crew hauling the leading boat against the stiff current suddenly cheered, frightened the big-horn sheep that had been following along the tops of the cliffs and peeping over curiously, watching the strange white men.
“De Sho-sho-nes!” gasped Lepage, who was on the line of the second boat, wherein Peter sat, fending with an oar. This was Peter’s job, when the current was very swift.
Everybody expected to see Captain Clark waiting with some of the Snakes. But the first crew had not cheered because of any Indians. They had cheered because the cliffs ceased, and now there extended a broadly-rolling green meadow-land rimmed about with high mountain ranges white and gray. The mountains closed in behind, on the east and north and west; and the meadow lay before, on the east and south and west. All lovely it looked in the sunrise.