cloth, the French boatmen in brightly fringed woollens, with scarlet 'kerchiefs about their heads. Rain was falling, but who cared!
Captain Lewis did not accompany. He was detained to talk more with the Osages who had come down. He hoped yet to make things clear to them. But he would join the boats at the village of St. Charles, twenty miles above.
In the sunshine of May 16 they tied to the bank at St. Charles. At the report of the cannon—boom!—the French villagers, now Americans all, came running down and gave welcome.
Sunday the 20th Captain Lewis arrived by skiff from St. Louis, and with him an escort of the St. Louis people, again to cheer the expedition on its way. Not until Monday afternoon, the 21st, was the expedition enabled to tear itself from the banquets and hand-*shakings, and onward fare in earnest, against the wind and rain.
Tawny ran the great Missouri River, flooded with the melted snows of the wild north, bristling with black snags, and treacherous with shifting bars. On either hand the banks crashed in, undermined by the changing currents. But rowing, poling, hauling with ropes, and even jumping overboard to shove, only occasionally aided by favoring breeze, the men, soldiers and voyageurs alike, worked hard and kept going. On leaving St. Charles the two captains doffed their uniforms until the next dress-up event, and donned buckskins and moccasins.
