Sacajawea was ill; she was in a fever. She could not talk to her husband; but to Lewis she talked, and always she said, "That way! By and by, big falls--um-m-m, um-m-m!"
"Guard her well," said Lewis anxiously. "Much depends on her. I must go on ahead."
He took the French interpreter, Drouillard, and three of the Kentuckians, and started on up the left-hand stream with one boat. The current of the river seemed to stiffen. It cost continually increasing toil to get the boat upstream. They were gone for several days, and no word came back from them.
Meantime, at the river forks, William Clark was busy. It was obvious that the explorers must lighten the loads of their boats. They began to cache all the heavy goods with which they could dispense--their tools, the extra lead and powder-tins, some of the flour, all the heavy stuff which would encumber them most seriously. Here, too, was the end of the journey of the red pirogue from St. Louis--they hid it in the willows of an island near the mouth of Maria's River.
Lewis himself, weak from toil, fell ill on the way, but still he would not stop. He came to a point from which he could see the mountains plainly on ahead. The river was narrow, flowing through a cañon.
The next day they came to the foot of the Great Falls of the Missouri, alone, majestic here in the wilderness, soundless save for their own dashing--those wonderful cascades, now so well known in industry, so nearly forgotten in history.
"The girl was right--this is the river!" said Lewis to his men. "It comes from the mountains. We are right!"
Cascade after cascade, rapid after rapid, he pushed on to the head of the great drop of the Missouri, where it plunges down from its upper valley for its long journey through the vast plains.
Now word went down to the mouth of Maria's River; but the messenger met Clark already toiling upward with his boats, for he had guessed the cause of delay, and at last believed Sacajawea.
"Make some boat-trucks, Will," said Lewis, when at last they were all encamped at the foot of the falls. "We shall have to portage twenty miles of falls and rapids."
And William Clark, the ever-ready engineer, who always had a solution for any problem in mechanics or in geography, went to work upon the hardest task in transportation they yet had had.
"We must leave more plunder here, Merne," said he. "We can't get into the mountains with all this."
So again they cached some of their stores. They buried here the great swivel piece which had "made the thunder" among so many savage tribes. Also there were stored here the spring's collection of animals and minerals, certain books and maps not needed, and the great grindstone which had come all the way from Harper's Ferry. They were stripping for their race.