very highest prices. The Chinooks, on the north side of the Columbia, the same people Captain Gray had traded with thirteen years before, were equally exorbitant in their prices, and exercised a monopoly of the necessaries of life quite equal to that of the most practised extortionists.
Nothing could be effected in the way of explorations of the country during the winter of 1805-6, on account of the rains, which were constant and excessive; and the party, however unwillingly, remained at Fort Clatsop until the middle of March, going no farther away than to Cape Lookout, about fifty miles down the coast. As soon as the rainy season had closed, Lewis and Clarke re-embarked their men, and returned up the river, surveying the shores on their voyage. On this passage they discovered the Cowlitz River, the principal tributary emptying into the Columbia from the north side anywhere west of the Cascades. The Wallamet River was also discovered, but remained unexplored, from the anxiety of the expedition to return to the United States.
By the middle of April the party had abandoned their canoes at the gap in the Cascade Mountains, where the river forms dangerous rapids; and, purchasing Indian horses, continued the journey on horseback to the Nez Perces country, where these faithful allies met them on their return, not with friendship only, but with the animals confided to their care the preceding autumn,—an example of Indian integrity worthy of mention, and, as it proved, indicative of a character shown in the events of succeeding years.
After crossing the Rocky Mountains to Clarke's River, the two leaders of the expedition separated,—Captain Lewis going northward, down the Clarke River, and Captain Clarke proceeding towards its source. On the 12th of August the two captains met at the mouth of the Yellowstone, having explored that river, as well as the Clarke, and traversed a great extent of country then unknown to white men, but where white men to-day are suffering the flushes and the rigors of that most infectious and fatal complaint—the gold-fever—in the territory of Montana.
At about the mouth of the Maria River, Captain Lewis had an encounter with the Blackfeet, the most savage and dreaded
