"Across the mountains, boys, to the Columby side. We followed up the Missouri, through yonder gap, till it got so small I stood with one foot on each bank. And we went on over, up an Injun trail. Where the waters flowed west we drank of the Columby!"
"Didn't you meet any Injuns on this side?"
"Yes. I'll tell you."
And so he did. On the third day out, the captain had sighted an Indian, through his spy-glass. The Indian was horseback, and looked as though he might be a Snake. But when the captain, calling "Tabba bone," meaning, in Sho-sho-ne, "white man," and stripping back his sleeve to show his white skin, was just about to talk with the Indian, John Shields foolishly came in and the Indian galloped away. The captain gave John a proper "dressing down," for this.
A number of horse tracks were seen, and the captain kept on advancing, following a sort of a road, into the mountains. He ordered a United States flag to be carried, on a pole. Next, two squaws were frightened, and ran away—but only a mile on, down the road, an old woman and a young woman and a little girl were discovered, on a sudden, digging roots. The young woman ran, but the old woman and the little girl squatted and covered their heads, expecting to be killed.
The captain raised them up and gave them presents, and got Drouillard to talk with them in sign language. The young woman came back; and after the captain had painted the cheeks of the three with vermilion, in
