"Quite so--they had to get their specimens ready to ship down the river in the spring. Then they had to make six canoes for use the next year, and as they found the timber unsuitable near the river, the men had to camp out where they found the trees, and then they carried the canoes by hand over to the river, a mile and a half. "They sent the big flatboat, or bateau, down the river, and thirteen men went with it. The two perogues and the six new cottonwood dugouts they took on west, up the river, when they started, on March 7, 1805, to finish their journey across the continent. Of these men, the party who went through, there were thirty-one; and there was one woman." "I know!" said Jesse. "Sacagawea!" "Right! Sacagawea. Make it two words. 'Wea' means 'woman.' 'Bird Woman' was her name--Sacaga Wea. And of the entire party, that Indian girl--she was only a girl, though lately married and though she started west with a very young baby--was worth more than any man. If it had not been for her they never would have got across. "You see, up to this place, the Mandan towns, they had some idea of the country, and so also they had beyond here as far as the mouth of the Yellowstone--that's two hundred and eighty-eight miles above here. But beyond the mouth of the Ro' Jaune--it even then was called Roche Jaune, or Yellow Stone, by the early French _voyageurs_--it was said the foot of white man never then had passed. There was no map, no report or rumor to help them. If they had a guide, it couldn't be a white man. "Now among the Mandans they found a man called Chaboneau, or Charboneau, a Frenchman, married to two Indian women, one of whom was Sacagawea. He had bought her from the Minnetarees, where she was a captive. "Just think how the natives traveled in those days! You know the Sioux hunted on the upper Platte, as far as the Rockies. Well, this Minnetaree war party had been west of the Rockies, or in the big bend of the Rockies, at the very head of the Missouri River, among the Shoshonis. They took Sacagawea prisoner when she was a little girl, and brought her east, all the way over to Dakota, here. But she was Indian--she did not forget what she saw. She knew about the Yellowstone, and the Three Forks of the Missouri. "Well now, whether it was because Chaboneau, the new interpreter, wanted her along, or whether Lewis and Clark figured she might be useful, Sacagawea went along, all the way to the Pacific--and all the way back to the Mandans again. Be sure, her husband did not beat her any more, while they were with the white captains. In fact, I rather think they made a pet of her. They found they could rely on her memory and her judgment.