ig fish," declared Captain Clark. "Chaboneau can stay home and tend
baby!"

However, the Bird-woman took little Toussaint, of course; and they two
viewed in wonderment the rolling, surging, thundering ocean; and the
immense whale, one hundred and five feet long, that had been cast
ashore. It is safe to assert that to the end of her days Sacagawea
never forgot these awesome sights.

In the spring of 1806 the homeward journey was begun. On the Missouri
side of the mountains the Bird-woman was detailed to help Captain Clark
find a separate trail, to the Yellowstone River.

And this she did, in splendid fashion; for when the party knew not
which way was the best way, out of the surrounding hills, to the
plains, she picked the landmarks; and though she had not been here in
many years, she showed the gap that led over and down and brought them
straight to the sunken canoes.

On August 14 the whole company was at the Mandan towns once more.
After her absence of a year and a half, and her journey of six thousand
miles, bearing little Toussaint (another great traveler) Sacagawea
might gaily hustle ashore, to entertain the other women with her
bursting budget of stories.

The captains offered to take Chaboneau and Sacagawea and Toussaint on
down to St. Louis. The Bird-woman would gladly have gone. She wanted
to learn more of the white people's ways. She wanted to be white,
herself.

But Chaboneau respectfully declined. He said that it would be a
strange country, and that he could not make a living there; later, he
might send his boy, to be educated by the captains. That was all.

So he was paid wages amounting to five hundred dollars and thirty-three
cents. Sacagawea was paid nothing. The captains left her to her
Indian life, and she followed them only with her heart.

Nevertheless, she did see her great Red Head Chief again. Captain
Clark was appointed by the President as Indian agent with headquarters
in St. Louis. He was a generous, whole-souled man, was this
russet-haired William Clark, and known to all the Indians of the plains
as their stanch friend.

So it is probable that he did not forget Sacagawea, his loyal
Bird-woman. In 1810 she, the boy Toussaint, and Chaboneau, visited in
St. Louis. In 1811 they were on their way up-river, for the Indian
country. Life among the white people had proved too much for the
gentle Sacagawea. She had tried hard to live their way, but their way
did not agree wit