d many adherents. The men began to
mutter.

"If we go up that left-hand stream we shall be lost among the
mountains," one said. "We shall perish when the winter comes!"

"We will go both ways," said Meriwether Lewis at length. "Captain
Clark will explore the lower fork, while I go up the right-hand
stream. We will meet here when we know the truth."

So Lewis traveled two days' journey up the right-hand fork before he
turned back, thoughtful.

"I have decided," said he to the men who accompanied him. "This stream
will lead us far to the north, into the British country. It cannot be
the true Missouri. I shall call this Maria's River, after my cousin in
Virginia, Maria Woods. I shall not call it the Missouri."

He met Clark at the fork of the river, and again they held a council.
The men were still dissatisfied. Clark had advanced some distance up
the left-hand stream.

"We must prove it yet further," said Meriwether Lewis. "Captain Clark,
do you remain here, while I go on ahead far enough to know absolutely
whether we are right or wrong. If we are not right in our choice, it
is as the men say--we shall fail! But where is Sacajawea?" he added.
"I will ask her once more."

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 canon.

The next day they came to t