On the eleventh of February Sacajawea’s son Baptiste was born, and a merry little papoose he proved to be. The travelers started west on the seventh of April, Chaboneau accompanying them, and Sacajawea carrying her baby, not quite two months old; every step of that five-thousand-mile journey she carried him, so that he was the most traveled papoose in the land. Taking the Bird-woman with them was an extremely wise measure on the part of the leaders, Lewis and Clark. Her presence was a sure guarantee that their intentions were peaceful, for no Indian tribe ever took a woman in their war parties. For the whole group of men the presence of this gentle, virtuous, retiring little woman and her baby must have had a softening, humanizing effect, greater than they were aware. Near the fire she would sit, making moccasins and crooning a song in her soft Indian monotone, while the baby toddled about, the two giving a touch of domesticity to that Oregon winter. There were many heroes of this journey to the Far West, but only one heroine--this modest, unselfish, tireless squaw. With the strongest of the men she canoed and trudged and climbed and starved, always with the baby strapped on her back. Long dreary months of toil she endured like a Spartan. Instead of being a drag on their progress she was time and again the inspiration, the genius of the expedition. And in their journals both Lewis and Clark gave her frequent credit for her splendid services and frankly acknowledged in terms of respect and admiration their indebtedness to her. One May afternoon when the travelers had been five or six weeks on their journey and were making good time with a sail hoisted on their boat, a sudden squall of wind struck them. The boat nearly went over, for Chaboneau, who was an interpreter and not a helmsman, lost his head, let go the tiller and called loudly to God for mercy. The water poured in and the boat was almost capsized before the men could cut the sail down. Out on the stream floated valuable papers and instruments, books, medicine, and a great quantity of merchandise. Always plucky in trouble, Sacajawea, who was in the rear, saved nearly all of these things, which were worth far more than their intrinsic value, since to replace them meant a journey of three thousand miles and a year’s delay. No wonder that Clark added, when speaking of the quick action of the Bird-woman, “to whom I ascribe equal fortitude and resolution with any person on board at the time of the accident.”