blackfoot-valley

atop the Continental Divide, from where Lewis could recognize Square Butte near the Great Falls of the Missouri. And glad he was to see it! The 6,000 foot pass has since been named Lewis and Clark Pass. Unlike the slightly low- er Rogers Pass a few miles south no highway passes it, but there is a trail that has become popular in the summer with hikers and history buffs who wish to share a piece of the Lewis and Clark story, to walk in Lewis’s footsteps. After reaching the Missouri, Lewis took three of his men on a side explo- ration up the Marias River, during which they had a narrow escape at sunup of July 27th in what became a hostile encounter with eight young Blackfoot warriors who tried to steal their rifles. During the fight, at least one, prob- ably two of the Blackfeet were killed. Fearing revenge-bent pursuit when the main group learned of the incident, Lewis and his party hastily retreated back toward the Missouri, riding all day and most of the night with only one break while covering one hundred miles. After one more hour and a half rest, at sunup they resumed the ride, covering the remaining twelve miles to the river, crossed the river to the south bank, and followed alongside it another eight miles downstream. There, well below the Great Falls, they had a fortunate reunion with Sergeant Ordway’s contingent of Clark’s party, and all continued by canoe down the river to put as many miles as possible between them and the pursuing Blackfeet. At last, on August 12th, they met Clark and the part of his party that had descended the Yellowstone, some distance below where the river joins the Missouri in present North Dakota. The rest of the downstream trip went rather quickly. On September 3rd, 1806, they reached St. Louis, which they had left two years and four months before, to the rejoicing of its townspeople who by this time had given them up for lost. There the expedition disbanded, its mission completed. Not just successfully, but resoundingly so. Notwithstanding the disap- pointment of failing to find an easy water passage that did not exist, they had found the easiest route to the Pacific across the northern part of the newly expanded United States. During that most rigorous two years and four months, they had not lost a man to hostile Indians or accident (save one who died from an infected appendix). They had returned with a wealth of scien- tific information, including Lewis’s discovery and identification of hundreds of plant and animal species heretofor unknown to science, not to mention the first systematic description of this vast region and the Indian tribes that lived there. Lewis and Clark had opened up the American West. 66