THREE COMPANIES IN CONFLICT 9 



Lisa was the first to act on the information brought 

 back by Lewis and Clark. Forming a partnership with 

 Morrison and Menard of Kaskaskia, 111., and engaging 

 Drouillard, one of Lewis and Clark s men, as interpre 

 ter, he left St. Louis with a heavily laden keel-boat in 

 the spring of 1807. Against the turbulent current of 

 the Missouri in the full flood-tide of spring this un 

 wieldy craft was slowly hauled or &quot; cordelled,&quot; twenty 

 men along the shore pulling the clumsy barge by means 

 of a line fastened high enough on the mast to be above 

 brushwood. Where the water was shallow the voyageurs 

 poled single file, facing the stern and pushing with 

 full chest strength. In deeper current oars were used. 



Launched for the wilderness, with no certain knowl 

 edge but that the wilderness was peopled by hostiles, 

 poor Bissonette deserted when they were only at the 

 Osage Eiver. Lisa issued orders for Drouillard to 

 bring the deserter back dead or alive orders that were 

 filled to the letter, for the poor fellow was brought 

 back shot, to die at St. Charles. Passing the mouth 

 of the Platte, the company descried a solitary white 

 man drifting down-stream in a dugout. When it was 

 discovered that this lone trapper was John Colter, who 

 had left Lewis and Clark on their return trip and 

 remained to hunt on the Upper Missouri, one can 

 imagine the shouts that welcomed him. Having now 

 been in the upper country for three years, he was 

 the one man fitted to guide Lisa s party, and was 

 promptly persuaded to turn back with the treasure- 

 seekers. 



Past Blackbird s grave, where the great chief of the 

 Omahas had been buried astride his war-horse high on 

 the crest of a hill that his spirit might see the canoes 



