sixteen hundred miles above St. Louis, in October, and, finding the Indians friendly, stayed there all winter.
On April 7 the journey was continued through an unknown country. The Little Missouri having been passed, the river became so narrow that it was difficult to tell the main stream from the tributary.
Captain Lewis went in advance to find the true course, and suddenly heard the voice of many waters. He hurried forward, and saw a sheet of water falling over a precipice eighty-seven feet, the Great Falls of the Missouri. The party camped at the site of the city of Great Falls for a month.
They entered the mountains on the 9th of July. At the forks of the Missouri it became absolutely necessary to use horses for crossing the Rocky Mountains, and these were purchased of the Indians.
The journey down the Columbia was long and hard, but they reached the Pacific Ocean in November, 1805, and built Fort Clatsop, where they remained until the spring of 1806.
Then began the homeward journey. When they had crossed the mountains, the party separated into three divisions, two of which were to go east by the Yellowstone River and one under Captain Lewis to go by the Missouri.
After quite an uneventful voyage the entire force was reunited below the Yellowstone, August 12. The people at a settlement above St. Louis were surprised to see thirty ragged, bronze-faced men pass down the river. Some, however,remembered who they were and welcomed them heartily.
On September 23, 1806, the ships came slowly into the water-front_of St. Louis and the great Lewis and Clarke Expedition was at an end.
“A Nature Study.” By Shirley Willis, age 13, Honor Member. (See note, page 91.)
PLEASURES.
By Margaret B. Dornin (age 11).
A beautiful time I had,
For pleasures they were plentiful,
And nothing there was sad,
I climbed the apple-tree,
I watched the boats go in and out
Of the harbor by the sea.
Was nothing but pure white;
For lilies grew there in the open air,
And closed themselves at night.
MY FAVORITE EPISODE IN AMERICAN HISTORY.
Mary Thornton (age 13).
During the War for Independence the Americans fought under a great many disadvantages. One of the greatest of these was the lack of proper clothing. Good uniforms were practically unknown. Men who procured enough clothes to keep out the weather were accounted lucky, and envied by their less fortunate comrades.
To winter the suffering was intense. With half-clothed bodies, bare feet, and half starved in addition, is it my wonder that the patriots died of cold and sickness on every side?
No. It is to be wondered at that more did not die. One cold night in December, when the snow lay thick upon the ground, Lafayette lay in his tent. He was thinking of his family far away in France. For a moment he was back in the old château, talking and laughing with his sisters, and making great dog leap over a stick held high in the air.
He was roused from his, reverie by the footsteps of the sentry as he paced to and fro outside the tent. Suddenly the footsteps ceased. Going to the door to see what the matter was, Lafayette saw the man kneeling down in the snow. trying to arrange the bloody cloths tied around his feet—for he had no shoes.
“Poor fellow!” thought the marquis, “he is cold. I am cold from standing here for just a minute, and what must he, with so few clothes, be? I will give him my blanket.”
He wrapped the blanket