The Bird-Woman of the Lewis and Clark Expedition | Page 9

again. There were other Indians near the Columbia. These Indians gave the men salmon and roots. They ate so much that they were ill. The captains and all the soldiers were ill. But they started to make canoes to ride down the Columbia. They did not get well. So they bought some dogs. They cooked the dogs and ate them. For days they could eat only dog. The Indians laughed at them for eating dog. They said, "Dogs are good to watch the camp. They are not good to eat. We do not eat them. What poor men these must be to eat dog!" Suddenly the captains fired off their guns and a soldier played the fiddle. Then the Indians stopped laughing. They had never heard a gun before. They had never before heard a fiddle. They thought the white men must be wonderful people to have guns and fiddles. They wished to be friends with such wonderful people. So they did not make fun of them any more.

full grass stones
HOW THE INDIANS DRIED SALMON.
The soldiers left their horses here on the Columbia River. They asked the Indians to keep them until they should come back from the West. Then they started down the river in canoes. On the Columbia, the party saw some Indians drying salmon. They opened the fish. Then they put it in the sun. When it was well dried, they pounded it to powder between two stones. Then they put it into a basket. The basket was made of grass. It had dried salmon skin inside. The Indians pounded the powdered salmon down hard into the basket. When a basket was full, they put dried salmon skin on the top. Then the basket was put where it would keep dry. The salmon powder would keep for years. Only one tribe of Indians knew how to make it well. The other tribes bought it from them. All the tribes liked it. The white men, too, liked it.

gath ered ar row head sum mer wap pa to pond toes
THE WAPPATO.
The party found a root new to them on the lower Columbia. The Indians called it wappato. Captain Clark called it arrowhead. The wappato grew all the year. The Indian women gathered it. A woman carried a light canoe to a pond. She waded into the pond. She put the canoe on the water. With her toes she pulled up the wappato from the bottom of the pond. The woman caught it and put it in the canoe. She was in the water many hours, summer and winter. When her canoe was full, she put it on her head and carried it home. She roasted the wappato on hot stones. It tasted very good. The soldiers said it was the best root they had tasted. The Indian women used to put some wappato in grass baskets and sell it to the tribes up the river.

anx ious cheer ful view break ing dis tinct ly shores
TO THE PACIFIC OCEAN.
The party went down the Columbia River in canoes. It was a hard trip. It rained all the time. Each day the men were wet to the skin. They had to carry their goods around some rapids. They could not be very cheerful. One day it stopped raining for a little time. The low clouds went away. The party saw that the river was very wide. They rowed on. Then they saw the great ocean lying in the sun. They became very happy. They cheered and laughed and sang. They rowed on very fast. Captain Lewis wrote in his book: "Ocean in view! O! the joy! We are in VIEW of the Ocean, this great Pacific Ocean, which we have been so long anxious to see. The noise made by the waves breaking on the rocky shores may be heard distinctly."

half for got jour ney troub les
THE PACIFIC OCEAN.
The party saw that they had come to the end of their journey. They had come 4,134 miles from the mouth of the Missouri River. It had taken them a year and a half to come. But now they forgot their troubles. They forgot the times they had been hungry. They forgot their cut feet and their black and blue backs. They forgot the bears and the snakes and the mosquitoes. They saw the Pacific Ocean before them. They sang because they were the first white men to make this journey. They did not care for the troubles going back. They knew that they could go home faster than they had come. And they sang together, "The Ocean! The Ocean! O joy! O joy!"

beach blub ber line thun der Clat sop salt whale sand
SACAJAWEA ON THE OCEAN BEACH.
The party made a winter camp at the mouth of the Columbia River. They called it Fort