Opening the West With Lewis and Clark: By Boat, Horse and Foot Up the Great River Missouri, Across the Stony Mountains and on to the Pacific, When in the Years 1804, 1805, 1806, Young Captain Lewis, the Long Knife, and His Friend Captain Clark, the Red Head Chief, Aided by Sacajawea, the Birdwoman, Conducted Their Little Band of Men Tried and True Through the Unknown New United StatesSabin, Edwin L. (Edwin Legrand)
History
Opening the West With Lewis and Clark: By Boat, Horse and Foot Up the Great River Missouri, Across the Stony Mountains and on to the Pacific, When in the Years 1804, 1805, 1806, Young Captain Lewis, the Long Knife, and His Friend Captain Clark, the Red Head Chief, Aided by Sacajawea, the Birdwoman, Conducted Their Little Band of Men Tried and True Through the Unknown New United States
Sabin, Edwin L. (Edwin Legrand)
Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804-1806) -- Fiction
The council did not pass off very satisfactorily, because Drouillard
knew little Teton talk, and scarcely could make himself understood when
he talked for Captain Lewis. Still, the head chief, Black Buffalo,
was given a medal, and a United States flag, and a red coat decorated
with white lace, and a cocked hat with red feather. The second chief,
Tor-to-hon-ga or Partisan, and the third chief, Buffalo Medicine, were
given medals and beads and tobacco. Two warriors, Wah-zing-go, and
Mat-o-co-que-pa or Second Bear, also were rewarded.
“What do you suppose those raven scalps signify?” asked George Shannon.
For the two warriors wore each two or three raven skins fastened to
their waists behind, with the tails sticking out, and on their heads
was another raven skin, flattened with the beak to the fore.
“Dey special soldier,” explained old Cruzatte. “W’at you call――marshal.
Oui. Dey boss. Obey nobody but chief.”
Then the captains took them all aboard the barge to show them the
cannon and the air-gun that shot forty times, and other wonders.
Captain Clark brought them ashore again in the red pirogue.
No sooner had the cable been carried on shore, to be held by Patrick
Gass and Reuben Fields and George Shannon while the load was landed,
and Captain Clark had stepped out, than three of the Indians grabbed
it, and Wah-zing-go, the warrior, put his arms about the mast, as if to
keep the boat there. Tor-to-hon-ga began to talk in a loud and angry
voice. Captain Clark flushed.
“What does he say, Peter?” he appealed. For Drouillard was on the
barge, and only Peter was near. When the five men had started to row
the pirogue ashore, with the chiefs and Captain Clark, he had slipped
in, too.
“The chief say you cannot go away till you give them more presents,”
translated Peter, boldly; for he had picked up some Sioux words and he
could read the gestures, also.
“What!” And Captain Clark was angry indeed. He had only five men, two
in the boat and three ashore, but he was not afraid. “You tell him we
will go on, and he can’t stop us. We are not squaws, but warriors. Our
great father has medicine on those boats that will wipe out twenty
Sioux nations.”
“The chief says he has plenty warriors, too,” interpreted Peter.
And at that moment the chief sprang for Captain Clark; the warriors
spread right and left, jerked arrows from quivers and fitted them to
strung bows. Out whipped Captain Clark’s bright sword――the long knife;
and Chief Tor-to-hon-ga dodged. Captain Clark’s face was redder than
his hair. He acted like a great chief.
“Watch out, Sergeant!” he cried, to Patrick Gass. “Rally on the boat;
never mind the rope. Face them and stand together, men!”
Captain Lewis’s voice rang high and stern, from the barge. Out of the
white pirogue a dozen men plashed into the shallows and wading and
plunging, hastened to reinforce the red pirogue. Corporal Warfington
and the six St. Louis soldiers who had been sent along to help as far
as the Mandans were with them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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