“Huh!” grunted Little Raven, second Mandan chief, prodding the lax, furry carcass with his spear. “Heap boy. Make big hunter.”
All together they dragged the bear, at the end of Pat’s belt, to the barge. Peter, of course, said nothing. But when Captain Clark clapped him roundly on the shoulder, and Captain Lewis said, “Well done, Peter,” he knew that he stood a good chance of being taken up-river. The Long Knife was not much given to idle words; but he appreciated deeds. The bear proved to be very old, very thin, with tusks worn to stubs. Hunger had driven him out of his winter hole early. The hair of his hide was loose. Nevertheless he was a large specimen.
“We’ll send his head to the President,” remarked Captain Lewis to Captain Clark. “No such bear as this can be found in Virginia or Kentucky.”
April was ushered in by a great thunder-storm of rain mingled with hail. That speedily cleared the river. The rotted ice went swirling down, and soon from bank to bank the Missouri was free.
“How far to the Rock Mountains, Pat?” asked Peter.
“Another thousand miles, I hear tell. An’ after that, another thousand miles to the big ocean.”
Pat scratched his carroty thatch, and reflectively rubbed his stubbled chin.
“Faith, an’ I dunno. Trust to the commandin’ officers, I guiss. That’s the proper way for soldiers. We’ll find a gate some’ers. There be some tremenjous falls to get around, fust, say the Injuns.”
“Sa-ca-ja-we-a know,” proudly asserted Chaboneau. “Her peoples lif dere, in ze mountains, beyond dose falls. She speak ze Snake tongue.”
“I gwine to kill one ob dem white b’ars,” boasted York.
All the fort was in a fever of impatience――the down-river men to be on their way “back to the United States,” as they expressed it; the up-river men to be on their way into a new country never explored by white foot. Long letters were being scrawled, for the “folks at home,” telling them of the past year’s adventures; Captain Lewis was busy preparing his report to the President; Captain Clark was laboring nights, by fire-light, putting final touches on a map of the Missouri, based upon a ruder map sketched by Little Raven, the Mandan, with charcoal on a buffalo hide. Baptiste Lepage and Chaboneau helped, for they, also, had been many days’ travel westward, trading with the Cheyennes and the Minnetarees.