"Yis, sorr. An', sorr (his voice was husky), I hope to meet ye safe an' sound at the mouth o' the Maria's."
The next morning, which was July 16, the captain took Drouillard, and the two Fields, and six horses, and rode away, for the upper Maria's River in the country of the Gros-ventres of the Prairie.
"Well, boys," spoke Pat; "we're now siven men an' four hosses, an' we'd better be busy fixin' the carts an' trainin' the hosses to drag 'em, ferninst the day when Ordway arrives with the canoes. I've no fancy for playin' hoss myself, when we've got the rale animals."
Nothing especial happened, except the mosquitoes, until the arrival of Sergeant Ordway and party. One trip was made to the lower end of the portage, to examine the white pirogue, and the caches; they all were safe. Harness was manufactured, out of elk hide, for attaching the horses to the wagons.
Sergeant Ordway appeared at three o'clock in the afternoon of July 19. He had with him Colter, Cruzatte, Collins, Potts, Lepage, Howard, Willard, Whitehouse, and Peter Wiser; the six canoes that had been sunk in the Jefferson River, and most of the goods that had been buried in the cache, when last August the company under Captain Lewis had set out to follow Chief Ca-me-ah-wait to the Sho-sho-ne camp on the other side of the pass. Nothing had been stolen or injured.
