material in his messages to Congress, and his citations were republished under a false claim that they gave the complete narrative. The actual journals were revised and largely rewritten by Nicholas Biddle of Philadelphia, but it so happened that another was able to claim the editorship, and they were published in 1814 with the name of Paul Allen on the title-page as editor. This Biddle edition was republished in several foreign countries. The story of the Lewis and Clark expedition, as told in this volume, is taken from the Biddle text.1

1 There have been many different editions, ranging from the elaborate and carefully annotated edition of Dr. Elliott Coues, to inexpensive small reprints. An abridged edition was published at New York in 1842 and reprinted several times. Mention should be made of William R. Lighton's excellent "Lewis and Clark," and the useful condensed narrative prepared by the late Noah Brooks in 1901.

But with all this array of editions it has so happened that the revised Biddle text has always been followed. The original journals have not been reprinted as the explorers wrote them, although Mr. Reuben G. Thwaites is now engaged in preparing them for publication.

CHAPTER XI

STARTING FOR THE WILDERNESS

Trappers and Indians. Across Missouri. The first sight of buffalo. Turning northward. A council with the Indians near Council Bluffs. An odd way of fishing. A country full of game.

On May 14, 1804, the travelers left their camp at the mouth of the Wood (now the Du Bois) River near St. Louis.

The route before them was up the Missouri and the Yellowstone on the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains, over the mountains and down Lewis's River (now known as Salmon River), the Clearwater, and the Columbia on the western side. The country which they were to pass through has since been divided into Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. The total length of the journey was to be some eight thousand miles.

It was to last from May, 1804, to September, 1806. From April, 1805, to August, 1806, they were to be wholly shut off from the civilized world.

It was not until four o'clock in the afternoon of the 14th that they finished their packing and pushed off their boats, and they had made only four miles when night forced them to land for the first camp of the journey near Cold Water Creek, just above Bellefontaine.

At St. Charles, which bears the same name to-day, they were overtaken on May 21 by Captain Lewis, who had been detained at St. Louis, and that afternoon they started on in the face of wind and rain.

A few days later they met some canoes laden with furs obtained among the "Mahar," or Omaha, Indians. These meetings are of interest because the trappers and the fur traders were the real pioneers of the far West. Their work was the chief industry of that great region for the first forty years of the last century.

On June 1 the expedition camped at the mouth of the Osage River, named from the

Osage Indians. The Dakotan name of these Indians was the Wabashas, from which comes the name Wabash. They believed themselves descended from a snail and a beaver, and for a long time they held the beaver sacred. But the demand for furs proved stronger than the tradition, and in spite of relationship the beavers suffered from the fur hunters.

Another camp was made at Moreau Creek, a little below the present Jefferson City. French fur traders were met, and at Little Manitou Creek (now Moniteau Creek in Missouri geographies) the explorers saw a strange figure resembling "the bust of a man with the horns. of a stag," which had been painted by the Indians on a projecting rock.

As they went on they entered the country of the Ayauway Indians, which was one of the many ways of spelling Iowas. Here they found deer and bears, and one of the hunters brought in a remarkable story of a small lake where "he heard a snake making a guttural noise like a turkey." The venison which the hunters obtained was frequently "jerked" for

preservation; that is, it was cut into ribbons and dried in the sun.

The expedition had now advanced some two hundred and sixty miles up the Missouri, to a point between Saline and Carroll counties, which lies not far from the center of the state of Missouri. Continuing a journey which for the time was comparatively uneventful, they crossed the state of Missouri on their steady way up the river, and on June 26 they reached the mouth of the Kansas River, which flows easterly through the state of Kansas. Here they found a village of Kansas Indians, most of whom were away on the plains "hunting for buffalo, which our hunters have seen for the first time."

This home of buffalo hunters at the mouth of the Kansas River has now given place to Kansas City, Missouri, and Kansas City, Kansas.

At this point the Missouri turns northwesterly on the ascent, and the explorers were on a straighter course to their destination. On the left, ascending, are now the Kansas counties of Leavenworth, Atchison, and Doniphan,