The company spent the winter on an island sixteen hundred miles from St. Louis. The men built rude homes and fortified them. The Indians were friendly and the explorers spent many evenings around the wigwam fires listening to stories of the country the Indians had to tell them. [Sidenote: =The Rocky Mountains=] In the spring they bade the Indians good-by, passed the mouth of the Yellowstone, and traveled on till the Rocky Mountains with their long rows of snow-covered peaks came into view. On the thirteenth day of June they beheld wonderful pictures of the "Falls of the Missouri." The water tore through a vast gorge a dozen miles or more in length. =120. The Way over the Mountains.= On they went until their boats could go no farther. They had reached rough and rugged hills and mountains. They climbed the heights as best they could. From now on the suffering was very great indeed. [Illustration: CAPTAIN WILLIAM CLARK _From the original painting by Charles Wilson Peale in Independence Hall, Philadelphia_] [Sidenote: =The source of the Missouri=] One day Captain Lewis went ahead with three men to find Indian guides for the party. They climbed higher and higher until finally they came to a place where the Missouri River takes its rise. They went on and at last came to the western slope of the mountains, down which flowed a stream toward the Pacific Ocean. Finally Captain Lewis came upon a company of Indian women who could not get away. They all bowed their heads as if expecting to be killed. They led the white men to a band of Indians, who received them with all the signs of kindness they could show. [Sidenote: =Indians are friendly=] Now they all turned back to find Clark and his party. When they reached Clark the Indians smoked the "pipe of peace" and Lewis and Clark told the Indians why the United States had sent them out. [Illustration: STATUE OF SACAJAWEA _This Indian woman, as interpreter and guide, was a great aid to the exploring party_] They were the first white men these Indians had ever seen. They looked the men over carefully and took a deep interest in their clothing, their food, and in their guns. [Sidenote: =Explorers suffer from hunger and cold=] The mountains were now rough and barren and the streams ran through deep gorges. The explorers took an old Indian guide and crossed the Bitter Root Mountains into a valley of the same name. They followed an Indian trail over the mountains again and into the Clearwater. They suffered for want of food and on account of the cold. When they reached a tribe of the Nez Percé (Pierced Nose) Indians they ate so much they were all ill. [Sidenote: =Reach the Columbia River=]