the Kentuckians fumed and swore. But little by
little, inch by inch, creeping, creeping, paying the toll exacted,
they went on day by day, leaving the old world behind them, morning by
morning advancing farther into the new.

The sun blistered them by day; clouds of pests tormented them by
night; miasmatic lowlands threatened them both night and day. But they
went on.

The immensity of the river itself was an appalling thing; its bends
swept miles long in giant arcs. But bend after bend they spanned, bar
after bar they skirted, bank after bank they conquered--and went on.
In the water as much as out of it, drenched, baked, gaunt, ragged,
grim, they paid the toll.

A month passed, and more. The hunters exulted that game was so easy to
get, for they must depend in large part on the game killed by the
way. At the mouth of the Kansas River, near where a great city one day
was to stand, they halted on the twenty-sixth of June. Deer, turkeys,
bear, geese, many "goslins," as quaint Will Clark called them,
rewarded their quest.

July came and well-nigh passed. They reached the mouth of the great
Platte River, far out into the Indian country. Over this unmapped
country ranged the Otoes, the Omahas, the Pawnees, the Kansas, the
Osages, the Rees, the Sioux. This was the buffalo range where the
tribes had fought immemorially.

It was part of the mission of Captain Lewis's little army to carry
peace among these warring tribes. The nature of the expedition was
explained to their chiefs. At the great Council Bluffs many of the
Otoes came and promised to lay down the hatchet and cease to make war
against the Omahas. The Omahas, in turn, swore allegiance to the new
flag.

On ahead somewhere lay the powerful Sioux nation, doubt and dread of
all the traders who had ever passed up the Missouri. Dorion, the
interpreter, married among them, admitted that even he could not tell
what the Sioux might do.

The expedition struck camp at last, high up on the great river, in the
country of the Yanktonnais. The Sioux long had marked its coming, and
were ready for its landing. Their signal fires called in the villages
to meet the boats of the white men.

They came riding down in bands, whooping and shouting, painted and
half naked, well armed--splendid savages, fearing no man, proud,
capricious, blood-thirsty. They were curious as to the errand of
these new men who came carrying a new flag--these men who could make
the thunder speak. For