First Across the Continent | Page 6

swept him down to the Missouri, and left
him exposed on the shore. The heat of the sun at length ripened him
into a man; but with the change of his nature he had not forgotten his
native seats on the Osage, towards which he immediately bent his way.
He was, however, soon overtaken by hunger and fatigue, when happily,
the Great Spirit appeared, and, giving him a bow and arrow, showed
him how to kill and cook deer, and cover himself with the skin. He then
proceeded to his original residence; but as he approached the river he
was met by a beaver, who inquired haughtily who he was, and by what
authority he came to disturb his possession. The Osage answered that
the river was his own, for he had once lived 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 the abundant grass and young willows that grew along the
river banks. The meat, cut in small strips, or ribbons, was dried quickly
in the hot sun. This was called "jirked" meat. Later on the word was
corrupted into "jerked," and "jerked beef" is not unknown at the present
day. The verb "jerk" is corrupted from the Chilian word, charqui,
meaning sun-dried meat; but it is not easy to explain how the Chilian
word got into the Northwest.
As the season advanced, the party found many delicious wild fruits,
such as currants, plums, raspberries, wild apples, and vast quantities of
mulberries. Wild turkeys were also found in large numbers, and the
party had evidently entered a land of plenty. Wild geese were abundant,
and numerous tracks of elk were seen. But we may as well say here that
the so-called elk of the Northwest is not the elk of ancient Europe; a
more correct and distinctive name for this animal is wapiti, the name

given the animal by the Indians. The European elk more closely
resembles the American moose. Its antlers are flat, low, and palmated
like our moose; whereas the antlers of the American elk, so-called, are
long, high, and round-shaped with many sharp points or tines. The
mouth of the great Platte River was reached on the twenty-first of July.
This famous stream was then regarded as a sort of boundary line
between the known and unknown regions. As mariners