Without horses, the crossing might well have failed. However, Lewis and Clark would not have found the Shoshone Indians nor obtained the horses. Had the explorers followed the Marias, they would have traveled up into the northern Rockies where a convenient pass led across the mountains into the Columbia River drainage. The mysterious northern fork was actually the Marias River. Lewis and Clark had been correct-the south fork was the Missouri River. began to make a roaring too tremendous to be mistaken for any cause short of the great falls of the Missouri.” By noon, Lewis had reached the falls, where he stared in awe at “a sublimely grand specticle … the grandest sight I had ever held.” On this day in 1805, four days after forging ahead of the main body of the expedition, Lewis was overjoyed to hear “the agreeable sound of a fall of water.” Soon after he “saw the spray arise above the plain like a column of smoke…. For Jefferson quotes from his short biography of Lewis, see Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with Related Documents 17831854, edited by Donald. If Lewis did not soon encounter the big waterfall the Hidatsa had told them of, the party would return and the expedition would backtrack to the other river.
To err on the side of caution, however, the captains decided that Lewis and a party of four would speed ahead on foot. Although all of their men disagreed, Lewis and Clark concluded they should proceed up the south fork. If the explorers chose the wrong river, they would not be able to find the Shoshone Indians from whom they planned to obtain horses for the portage over the Rockies.
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