The gaping, loaded mouth of the swivel gun and the resolute action of the men suddenly cooled the Lakotas' appetite for combat. Tortohonga hastily ordered the young men away from the pirogue. The crisis had passed.

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After the showdown on the banks of the Bad River, peace was made with the duly impressed Lakotas, who regaled the men with a feast and a dance. The Corps then continued its epic journey. By the time they reached the site of future Bismarck, N.D., the men had traversed 1,610 miles with only one fatality, Charles Floyd, dead of natural causes back in Iowa. Now, however, the days of fall were getting shorter, and the first bite of winter was in the air. Accordingly, by November, the expedition made plans to spend the season among the Mandan Indians along the Missouri River.

For protection, in true military fashion, they constructed Fort Mandan. Each wall of the V-shaped defensive work was 56 feet long and about 7 feet tall, with the opening of the 'V' barred by a stout wall.

Through the frigid winter–at least 40 days between December and March the thermometer sank to a bone-rattling zero–Fort Mandan stood as an impressive symbol of American power for the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara, as well as the Lakotas. The Mandans were also awed by the black skin of York, Clark's trusted slave. For the British-run North West Fur Company, the Americans' presence signaled an end to its monopoly of the beaver trade and the debut of a new ruler. The only contact with the hostile Lakotas came on Valentine's Day, February 14, 1805, when four men were sent out to bring up meat that had been collected by hunters. More than 100 Lakotas rushed them, cut the traces of the sleds, and made off with two of the horses while an Indian with the soldiers gave them another. This horsestealing raid, more a test of Lakota courage than a provocation to the Corps, was the only challenge the mighty tribe made against Fort Mandan and its garrison.

When spring came and the ice on the Missouri melted, the Corps made preparations to continue its journey. The group left the fort on April 7. Here came an historic parting of the ways for the members of the expedition: Some would continue the voyage to the ocean, while others would return downstream to St. Louis with the information they had gathered thus far. Pennsylvania-born Gass noted this date in his diary, 'Thirty-one men and a woman went upriver and thirteen returned down it in the boat.' The woman, who had joined the troops at Fort Mandan, was Sacagawea, whose name from then on would be linked with Lewis and Clark.

Through country rich with wildlife, the party traveled onto the Yellowstone River, tributary to the all-powerful Missouri. Herds of buffalo, elk and antelope, which had not yet learned to fear the hand of man or his weapons, 'were so gentle we pass near them without appearing to excite any alarm, and when we attract their attention they approach more nearly to see what we are.'

Another trial soon faced the wearying advance scouts of the American empire. They reached the Great Falls of the Missouri, where the men were forced to undergo the most grueling rite of passage in all of Western sojourning: a portage. The troops and laborers had to carry all their equipment, plus the boats, on their backs until the next navigable stretch of water was finally attained. By June 23, some of the men were limping from sore feet; others were scarcely able to stand for more than a few minutes from heat and fatigue.

River-borne again on July 15, the trekkers soon entered the extraordinary range of rocks called the Gates of the Rocky Mountains, whose foothills, the Sawtooth Range in Montana, Lewis had climbed on May 26. Sacagawea, who had been a Shoshone maiden of 10 when captured by a raiding party of Hidatsa in 1800, knew she was returning to the hunting grounds of her people, the Shoshones, 'Lords of the Rocky Mountains.'

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