re 'Osarges,'
the Iowas, 'Ayauways.' His men got 'deesantary' and 'tumers,' which were
'dificcelt to cure.' He gives a dog 'som meet,' and speaks of a storm
which 'seased Instancetaniously.' He does a lot of odd things with big
words and little ones, as spelling 'cedar' 'seeder'--at least the
simplest way! As to jerked meat, I suppose it was as good if spelled
'jurked,' or even 'jirked,' and a 'tirkey' is as good as turkey,
perhaps.

"Plain and matter-of-fact, he was, that Redhead Chief, as the Indians
called him; yet very little escaped him or his friend, and both could
note the beauty of nature. See here, where Clark writes on June 20th
(his capitals are odd as his spelling): 'at Sunset the atmesphier
presented every appearance of wind, Blue and White Streeks centiring at
the Sun as she disappeared and the Clouds Situated to the S. W. Guilded
in the most butiful manner.'

"Can't you see the sunset? And can't you see Will Clark, his tongue on
one side, frowning as he wrote by the firelight?

"And Lewis wasn't so much better. For instance, he spelled squirrel as
'squirril,' where Clark spells it 'squarl,' and he spells hawk 'halk,'
and hangs a 'Meadle' on a chief's neck. Oh, this old _Journal_ certainly
is a curious thing!"

Jesse threw himself down on the sand in a fit of laughter. "I could do
better'n that my own self," said he, at last. "Why, what sort of people
were they, couldn't spell any better than that?"

"Maybe you could," said Uncle Dick, "but you are not to laugh at William
Clark, who was a great man. He did all that writing after a hard day's
work, in a wild and strange country. I suppose it was hard for him to
write, but he did it, and here it is.

"Oddly enough, Clark wrote a very fine, clear hand--a gentleman's
handwriting. The _Journals_ are always done in pen and ink. Clark did
most of the work in the _Journal_, but Lewis at times took a hand.
Between them they kept what might be called the log of the voyage.

"They worked, all of that party. The oarsmen had to work under a
taskmaster all day. Some one had to hunt, for they only had about a ton
of cargo, all told, and they only had $2,500 to spend for the whole trip
out and back, and to feed forty people two years. And at night the
commanders made Gass and Ordway and Floyd and Whitehouse keep journals,
too; and Pryor and Frazier did a bit of the same, like enough. They had
to cover everything they saw.

"So that is how we got this wonderful _