"You stay by ze lodge fire. Dat is place for womans," he rebuked. Whereupon Sacagawea took the bit in her teeth (a very unusual thing for a squaw to do) and went straight to Captain Clark, her friend.
"I come a long way, capitin. I carry my baby, I cold, hungry, wet, seeck, I come an' I no care. I show you trail; I say 'Snake peoples here,' an' you find Snakes. You get hosses, food, guide. When Indians see me an' my Toussaint, dey say 'Dis no war party,' an' dey kind to you. When you get hungry for bread, I gif you one leetle piece dat I carry all de way from Mandan town. I try to be good woman. I work hard, same as mens. Now I been here all dis time, near de salt water dat I trabble many days to see--an' I not see it yet. Dere is a beeg fish, too. Odders go see--I stay. Nobody ask Sacagawea. My man he say 'You tend baby!' I--I feel bad, capitin." And she hid her face in her blanket.
"By gracious, go you shall, Sacagawea, and see the salt water and the big fish," declared Captain Clark. "Chaboneau can stay home and tend baby!"
However, the Bird-woman took little Toussaint, of course; and they two viewed in wonderment the rolling, surging, thundering ocean; and the immense whale, one hundred and five feet long, that had been cast ashore. It is safe to assert that to the end of her days Sacagawea never forgot these awesome sights.
In the spring of 1806 the homeward journey was begun. On the Missouri side of the mountains the Bird-woman was detailed to help Captain Clark find a separate trail, to the Yellowstone River.
And this she did, in splendid fashion; for when the party knew not which way was the best way, out of the surrounding hills, to the plains, she picked the landmarks; and though she had not been here in many years, she showed the gap that led over and down and brought them straight to the sunken canoes.
On August 14 the whole company was at the Mandan towns once more. After her absence of a year and a half, and her journey of six thousand miles, bearing little Toussaint (another great traveler) Sacagawea might gaily hustle ashore, to entertain the other women with her bursting budget of stories.
The captains offered to take Chaboneau and Sacagawea and Toussaint on down to St. Louis. The Bird-woman would gladly have gone. She wanted to learn more of the white people's ways. She wanted to be white, herself.