arch, 1804, the United States took over that French Province
of Louisiana which extended from the upper Mississippi River west to
the Rocky Mountains, a multitude of Indians changed white fathers.

These Western Indians were much different from the Eastern Indians.
They were long-hair Indians, and horse Indians, accustomed to the rough
buffalo chase, and a wide range over vast treeless spaces.

To learn about them and their country, in May, 1804, there started up
the Missouri River, by boats from St. Louis, the famed Government
exploring party commanded by Captain Meriwether Lewis and Captain
William Clark.

It was an army expedition: twenty-three enlisted men, a hunter, a squad
of boatmen, Captain Clark's black servant York, and a squad of other
soldiers for an escort part of the way. In all, forty-three, under the
two captains.

Their orders were, to ascend the Missouri River to its head; and, if
possible, to cross the mountains and travel westward still, to the
Columbia River and its mouth at the Pacific Ocean of the Oregon country.

No white man knew what lay before them, for no white man ever had made
the trip. The trail was a trail in the dark.

This fall they had gone safely as far as the hewn-timber towns of the
Mandan Indians, in central North Dakota; here they wintered, and met
the little Bird-woman.

Her Indian name was Sa-ca-ga-we-a, from two Minnetaree words meaning
"bird" and "woman." But she was not a Minnetaree, who were a division
of the Sioux nation, living in North Dakota near the Mandans. She was
a Sho-sho-ni, or Snake, woman, from the distant Rocky Mountains, and
had been captured by the Minnetarees. Between the Minnetarees of the
plains and the Snakes of the mountains there was always war.

Now at only sixteen years of age she was the wife of Toussaint
Chaboneau, a leather-faced, leather-clad French-Canadian trader living
with the Mandans. He had bought her from the Minnetarees--and how much
he paid in trade is not stated, but she was the daughter of a chief and
rated a good squaw. Toussaint had another wife; he needed a younger
one. Therefore he bought Sacagawea, to mend his moccasins and greet
him with a smile for his heart and warm water for his tired feet. His
old wife had grown rather cross and grunty.

Chaboneau was engaged as interpreter, this winter, and moved over to
the white camp. Sacagawea proved to be such a cheerful, willing little
woman that the captains and the m