organized a party to go to the spot and get what blubber they might.
Naturally, everybody was anxious to see the whale.
"You'd better take Peter, hadn't you, Captain?" suggested Captain Lewis. "He's a boy—he ought to see what there is to be seen."
"By all means," agreed Captain Clark. "Do you know what a whale is, Peter?"
"A big fish," answered Peter, eagerly.
"Yes; a big warm-blooded fish; a fish bigger than a buffalo."
Now, Sa-ca-ja-we-a had heard; she had helped Chaboneau cook the blubber for the captains. But she had not been invited to go. In fact, all this time the Bird-woman had not been even so far as the big water. She had worked in the fort.
Suddenly she did a very surprising thing, for an Indian woman. When she believed that she was to be left out of the sightseeing party, she wept.
"Why you want to go?" scolded Chaboneau. "Ze capitaines no haf time to wait for woman with baby. You stay by ze lodge fire; dat is place for womans."
Sa-ca-ja-we-a tilted her chin at him and went straight to Captain Clark.
"Capitin! I speak a leetle."
"What is it, Sa-ca-ja-we-a?"
"I come long way, capitin. I carry baby, I cold, hungry, wet, seeck, I keep up an' I no complain. I show you trail; when you no know which way, I say
