That was great luck for Sacagawea, but it was greater luck for the two captains. In the spring they broke camp, and taking Chaboneau as interpreter in case that the hostile Minnetarees were met, and little Sacagawea to spy out the land of the Snakes, and littlest Toussaint, the baby, as a peace sign to all tribes, with a picked party of thirty-one the two captains started on, up the swollen Missouri. They made no mistake, in the Bird-woman. Of course she was used to roughing it; that was the life of an Indian woman--to do the hard work for the men, in camp and on the trail. But Sacagawea early showed great good sense. Her husband Chaboneau almost capsized their canoe, by his clumsiness. She neither shrieked nor jumped; but calmly reaching out from it, with her baby tightly held, she gathered in the floating articles. She saved stuff of much value, and the captains praised her. "She's a better man than her husband," asserted the admiring soldiers. After hard travel, fighting the swift current, the strong winds, storms of rain and sleet, and monster grizzly bears, the expedition arrived at the Great Falls, as the Bird-woman had promised. She had ridden and waded and trudged, like the rest. She had carried her baby on her back, and had built the fires for her husband, and cooked his meals, and kept right along with the men, and had not complained nor lagged. At the Great Falls she was not so certain of the best route. This was a strange country to her, although she had known that the Falls were here. The Shining Mountains were in sight; the land of the Shoshonis lay yonder, to the southwest. All right. The captains chose what seemed to be the best route by water, and headed on, to the southwest. Sacagawea gazed anxiously, right, left, and before. Her heart was troubled. She not only much desired to find her people, for herself, but she desired to help the great captains. "The fate of the whole party" depended upon her--and she was just a slight little Indian woman! The Snakes did not come down, by this way. It was too far north; it was the haunts of their enemies the Blackfeet and the Minnetarees, of whom they were deathly afraid. They were a timid mountain folk, poorly armed to fight the Sioux, who had obtained guns from traders down the Missouri. After a time the river narrowed still more, and between rough banks poured out from a canyon of high cliffs, black at their base and creamy yellow above. "The Gate of the Mountains, ain't it?" passed the hopeful word. Sacagawea agreed. She had heard of this very "gate," where the river burst into the first plains. "When we come to the place where the river splits into three parts, that is Shoshoni country--my people will be there." On forged the boats, poled and hauled and rowed, while the men's soggy moccasins rotted into pieces, and the mosquitoes bit fiercely. The two captains explored by land. Hunting was forbidden, lest the reports of the guns alarm the Snakes.