miles.
In vain the Captains desired to press on.
"Wait," begged Yellept. "Wait." Already he had sent invitations to the Eyakimas, his friends the Black Bears, and to the Cayuses.
Possibly Sacajawea had hinted something; at any rate with a cry of "Very Great Medicine," the lame, the halt, the blind pressed around the camp. The number of unfortunates, products of Indian battle, neglect, and exposure, was prodigious.
Opening the medicine chest, while Lewis bought horses, Clark turned physician, distributing eye-water, splinting broken bones, dealing out pills and sulphur. One Indian with a contracted knee came limping in.
"My own father, Walla Walla chief," says old Se-cho-wa, an aged Indian woman on the Umatilla to-day. "Lots of children, lots of horses. I, very little girl, follow them."
With volatile liniments and rubbing the chief was relieved.
In gratitude Yellept presented Clark with a beautiful white horse; Clark in turn gave all he had—his sword.
Bidding the chief adieu, the Captains recorded: "We may, indeed, justly affirm, that of all the Indians whom we have met since leaving the United States the Walla Wallas were the most hospitable and sincere."
Poor old Yellept! One hundred years later his medal was found in the sand at the mouth of the Walla Walla. All his sons were slain in battle or died of disease. When the last one lay stretched in the grave, the old chief stepped in upon the corpse and commanded his people to bury them in one grave together.
"On account of his great sorrow," says old Se-cho-wa.
And so he was buried.
