h larger chips than any we ever saw. We fear these
men, because they do not fear us. We do not know what to think. They
are men who never sleep. Before the sun is up we find them writing or
making large chips with their axes, or hunting in the woods--not a day
goes by that their hunters do not bring in elk and deer and buffalo.
They do not fear us.

"We have seen no men like these. They are chiefs, and their medicine
is strong!"

CHAPTER V

THE APPEAL

"Well done, Will Clark!" said Meriwether Lewis, when, at length, one
cold winter morning, they stood within the walls of the completed
fortress. "Now we can have our own fireplace and go on with our work
in comfort. The collection is growing splendidly!"

"Yes, Mr. Jefferson will find that we have been busy," rejoined Clark.
"The barge will go down well loaded in the spring. They'll have the
best of it--downhill, and over country they have crossed."

"True," mused Lewis. "We are at a blank wall here. We lack a guide
now, that is sure. Two interpreters we have, who may or may not be of
use, but no one knows the country. But now--you know our other new
interpreter, the sullen chap, Charbonneau--that polygamous scamp with
two or three Indian wives?"

"Yes, and a surly brute he is!"

"Well, it seems that last summer Charbonneau married still another
wife, a girl not over sixteen years of age, I should judge. He bought
her--she was a slave, a captive brought down from somewhere up the
river by a war-party. She is a pleasant girl, and always smiles. She
seems friendly to us--see the moccasins she made for me but now. And I
only had to knock her husband down once for beating her!"

"Lucky man!" grinned William Clark. "I have knocked him down half a
dozen times, and she has made me no moccasins at all. But what then?"

"So far as I can learn, that Indian girl is the only human being here
who has ever seen the Stony Mountains. The girl says that she was
taken captive years ago somewhere near the summit of the Stony
Mountains. Above here a great river comes in, which they call the
Yellow Rock River--the 'Ro'jaune,' Jussaume calls it. Very well. Many
days' or weeks' journey toward the west, this river comes again within
a half-day's march of the Missouri. That is near the summit of the
mountains; and this girl's people live there."

"By the Lord, Merne, you're a genius for getting over new country!"

"Wait. I find the child very bright--very clear of mind. And