Читать книгу The Overland Trail онлайн

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But we are anticipating our story.

Lewis and Clark noted “the sand bars so rolling we were unable to steer with our oars,” “the great muddy river so rapid” below its oily yellow surface, the hot temperature at midday, the sudden fall to chill at night, the gobble of wild turkeys in the high grass of July, the wild oaks and walnuts you see today, the lonely threnody of the whippoorwill all night, the thick fogs of night and morning, which acted as such a dangerous screen for spying Indians, a little river coming in on the west called Elkhorn from a chief. Please note that name. You will meet it again presently in one of the most terrible episodes of the Overland Migration—seldom told. At or near Council Bluffs, Lewis and Clark camped under oaks, walnut, elms. When the chiefs came together, Lewis and Clark found the Pawnees had many lodges, many clans, many tribes—Wolf Pawnees from the Platte well named; Kites back from the river, so called because they rode so furiously that their passing raiders were like hawks pouncing on victims of “extreme ferocity,” never yielding in battle. It was the first week of August the council was held. The Indians expressed joy because they “wanted firearms.” Of course they did, and you will learn how they used them for half a century.