Page:The Conquest.djvu/257

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

ndsmen grew seasick in the rising swells of the up-river tide. For miles they could not find a place to camp, so wild and rocky were the shores.

At last, exhausted, they threw their mats on the beautiful pebbly beach and slept in the rain.

Everything was wet, soaked through, bedding, stores, clothing. And all the salt was spoiled. There was nothing to eat but raw dried salmon, wet with sea water, and many of the men began to be ill from exposure and improper food.

"'T is the divil's own weather," said Pat, coming in from a reconnoitre with his wet hunting shirt glued fast to his skin. Pat could see the "waves loike small mountains rolling out in the ocean," but just now he, like all the rest, preferred a dry corner by a chimney fire.

"Une Grande Piqnique!" exclaimed Cruzatte.
"Lak' tonder de ocean roar!
Blow lak' not'ing I never see,
Blow lak' le diable makin' grande tour!
Hear de win' on de beeg pine tree!"

And all were hungry. Even Clark, who claimed to be indifferent as to what he ate, caught himself pondering on bread and buns. With the peculiar half laugh of the squaw, Sacajawea brought a morsel that she had saved for the child all the way from the Mandan towns, but now it was wet and beginning to sour. Clark took it and remarked in his journal, "This bread I ate with great satisfaction, it being the only mouthful I had tasted for several months."

Chinook Indians pilfered around the camp. "If any one of your nation steals anything from us, I will have you shot," said Captain Clark,—"which they understand very well," he remarked to the camp as the troublers slunk away. A sentinel stood on constant watch.

Captain Lewis and eleven of the men went around the bay and found where white people had been camped all summer, but naught remained save the cold white beach and the Indians camping there. The ships had sailed.

Down there near the Chinook town, facing the