the 'Mahas (Omahas), the Sioux, the Arikaras, the Mandans, the Minnetarees; and then, who could say? Few white men, even the French traders, had been farther. How would all these tribes, known and unknown, receive the strange Americans?
Spring had come, the ice was whirling down, in rotted floes, out of the north, the channel of the crooked Missouri was clearing, and every man in the expedition was keen to be away, following the honking geese into this new America over which the flag of the United States waved at last.
Now the expedition had grown to full strength. There were the two captains; the fourteen soldiers enlisted at Pittsburg, Fort Massac and Fort Kaskaskia; the nine Kentuckians, enrolled at Mulberry Hill near Louisville; George Drouillard (or Drewyer, as he was called), the hunter from Kaskaskia who had been recommended by Captain Clark's brother the general; Labiche and one-eyed old Cruzatte, French voyageurs or boatmen engaged by Captain Lewis at St. Louis; nine other boatmen, and Corporal Warfington and six privates from the Kaskaskia troops in St. Louis, who were to go as far as the next winter camp, and then return with records and trophies; and black York, Captain Clark's faithful servant, who was going just as far as his master did.
So forty-five there were in all, to start. Except York, those who were going through had been sworn in as privates in the United States Army, to serve
