there while the water
runs or the grass grows, as the Indians say."

"But even now you've forgotten something, Uncle Dick," interrupted John.
"You said this was the Forks of the Road. How do you mean?"

"Yes. This later proved one of the great strategic points of the West.
As you know, this was the head of steamboat navigation, and the
outfitting point for the bull trains that supplied all the country west
and south and north of us. No old post is more famous. But that is not
all.

"I have reference now, really, not to Fort Benton, but to the mouth of
the Marias River, below here. Now, see how nearly, even to-day, the
Marias resembles the Missouri River. Suppose you were captain, Jess, and
you had no map and nothing to go by, and you came to these two rivers
and didn't have any idea on earth which was the one coming closest to
the Columbia, and had no idea where either of them headed--now, what
would you do?"

"Huh!" answered Jesse, with no hesitation at all. "I know what I'd have
done."

"Yes? What, then?"

"Why, I'd have asked that Indian girl, Sacagawea, that's what I'd have
done. She knew all this country, you say."

"By Jove! Not a bit bad, Jess, come to think of it. But look at your
_Journal_. You'll find that at precisely the first time they needed to
ask her something they could not! The girl was very sick, from here to
above the Great Falls. They thought she was going to die, and it's a
wonder she didn't, when you read what all they gave her by way of
medicines. She was out of her head part of the time. They never asked
her a thing on the choice of these rivers!

"Well now, what did they do? They spent more than a week deciding, and
it was time well spent. They sent out small parties up each fork a
little way, and the men all thought the Marias, or right-hand fork, was
the true Missouri. Then Clark was sent up the south fork, which was
clearer than the other. He went thirty-five miles. If he had gone twenty
miles farther, he'd have been at the Great Falls; and the Minnetaree
Indians had told of those falls, and of an eagle's nest there, though
they said nothing about the river to the north. Chaboneau had never been
here. His wife was nearly dead. No one could help.

"Lewis took a few men and went up the Marias for about sixty miles. They
came back down the Marias, and decided on the left-hand fork, against
the judgment of every man but Clark.

"His reasoning is good. The men all pointed out that t