er named after him, heard of white men who had come to the ocean
somewhere far to the south. Word had passed up the coast, among the
native tribes, of men who had white skins, and who had with them a
black man with curly hair.

"That's Lewis and Clark!" said Simon Fraser. "They were at the Mandan
villages. We are beaten!"

So now the largest flag left to Lewis and Clark floated by the side of
a single fire on the wet beach on the north shore of the Columbia.
Here a rude bivouac was pitched, while the leaders finished their
first hasty investigation along the beach.

"There is little to attract us here," said William Clark. "On the
south shore there is better shelter for our winter camp." So they
headed their little boats across the wide flood of the Columbia.

It was now December of the year 1805. Fort Clatsop, as they called
their new stockade, was soon in process of erection--seven splendid
cabins, built of the best-working wood these men ever had seen; a tall
stockade with a gate, such as their forefathers had always built in
any hostile country.

While some worked, others hunted, finding the elk abundant. More than
one hundred elk and many deer were killed. And having nothing better,
they now set to work to tan the hides of elk and deer, and to make new
clothing. As to civilized equipment they had little left. About four
hundred pairs of moccasins they made that winter, Sacajawea presiding
over the moccasin-boards, and teaching the men to sew.

Clark, the indefatigable, a natural geographer, completed the
remarkable series of maps which so fully established the accuracy of
their observations and the usefulness of the voyage across the
continent. Lewis kept up his records and extended his journals. All
were busy, all happier than they had been since their departure from
the East.

Christmas was once more celebrated to the tune of the Frenchman's
fiddle. Came New Year's Day also; and by that time the stockade was
finished, the gate was up, the men were ready for any fortune which
might occur.

"Pretty soon, by and by," said the voyageurs, "we will run on the
river for home once more!"

Even Sacajawea, having fulfilled her great ambition of looking out
over the sea which tasted of salt, said that she, too, would be
content to go back to her people.

"We must leave a record, Will," said Lewis one day, looking up from
his papers. "We must take no chances of the results of our exploration
not reaching Washin