on its
borders. As they stood disputing, the daughter of the beaver came, and
having, by her entreaties, reconciled her father to this young stranger,
it was proposed that the Osage should marry the young beaver, and share
with her family the enjoyment of the river. The Osage readily consented,
and from this happy union there soon came the village and the nation of
the Wabasha, or Osages, who have ever since preserved a pious reverence
for their ancestors, abstaining from the chase of the beaver, because in
killing that animal they killed a brother of the Osage. Of late years,
however, since the trade with the whites has rendered beaver-skins more
valuable, the sanctity of these maternal relatives has been visibly
reduced, and the poor animals have lost all the privileges of kindred.

Game was abundant all along the river as the explorers sailed up the
stream. Their hunters killed numbers of deer, and at the mouth of Big
Good Woman Creek, which empties into the Missouri near the present town
of Franklin, Howard County, three bears were brought into the camp.
Here, too, they began to find salt springs, or "salt licks," to which
many wild animals resorted for salt, of which they were very fond.
Saline County, Missouri, perpetuates the name given to the region by
Lewis and Clark. Traces of buffalo were also found here, and occasional
wandering traders told them that the Indians had begun to hunt the
buffalo now that the grass had become abundant enough to attract this
big game from regions lying further south.

By the tenth of June the party had entered the country of the Ayauway
nation. This was an easy way of spelling the word now familiar to us
as "Iowa." But before that spelling was reached, it was Ayaway, Ayahwa,
Iawai, Iaway, and soon. The remnants of this once powerful tribe now
number scarcely two hundred persons. In Lewis and Clark's time, they
were a large nation, with several hundred warriors, and were constantly
at war with their neighbors. Game here grew still more abundant, and in
addition to deer and bear the hunters brought in a raccoon. One of these
hunters brought into camp a wild tale of a snake which, he said, "made
a guttural noise like a turkey." One of the French voyageurs confirmed
this story; but the croaking snake was never found and identified.

On the twenty-fourth of June the explorers halted to prepare some of the
meat which their hunters brought in. Numerous herds of deer were feeding
on th