The first day of July found them encamped at the mouth of Traveler's Rest Creek, where all mountain trails converged. It was from this place that Captain Clark's plan for a shorter route to the Falls of the Missouri was to be put into execution. But that was not all that lay in their minds. "We now formed the following plan of operations: Captain Lewis, with nine men, is to pursue the most direct route to the Falls of the Missouri, where three of his party are to be left to prepare carriages for transporting the baggage and canoes across the portage. With the remaining six, he will ascend Maria's River to explore the country and ascertain whether any branch of it reaches as far north as latitude 50 deg., after which he will descend that river to its mouth. The rest of the men will accompany Captain Clark to the head of Jefferson River, which Sergeant Ordway and a party of nine men will descend, with the canoes and other articles deposited there. Captain Clark's party, which will then be reduced to ten, will proceed to the Yellowstone, at its nearest approach to the Three Forks of the Missouri. There he will build canoes, go down that river with seven of his party, and wait at its mouth till the rest of the party join him. Sergeant Pryor, with two others, will then take the horses by land to the Mandans. From that nation he will go to the British posts on the Assiniboin with a letter to Mr. Henry, to procure his endeavors to prevail on some of the Sioux chiefs to accompany him to Washington." It is hard to understand that indomitable humor. Here they were, just freed from imminent disaster, worn, half-starved, beggared, yet bobbing up like corks from the depths, and forthwith making calm preparations for fresh labors of a grave kind. CHAPTER XI RECROSSING THE DIVIDE By the route made famous as Lewis and Clark's Pass, Captain Lewis's party on July 7th recrossed the Great Divide that separates the Atlantic from the Pacific, and upon the next day they again ate of the flesh of the buffalo. On the 16th they were at the Falls of the Missouri; and two days later they reached the mouth of Maria's River, which they were to explore. Ten days were spent in this exploration, until further progress was stopped, on the 26th, by an encounter with a band of the dreaded Minnetarees of Fort de Prairie, who had wrought such havoc among the Shoshones,--a set of roving outlaws, who held a reign of terror over all the tribes of the northwestern plains.