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Show 4 ROMANCE OF PI0NEEB LIFE. Marriage of Explorer Captain William Clark to Indian In-dian Maiden Revealed. Helena, Mont., July 16 A romance of a hundred hun-dred years ago, in which Captain William Clark of the famous Lewis and Clark expedition figured, has just been discovered. Congressman Joseph Dixon of Montana, at his home in AJisoula, has been presented with indisputable indis-putable proofs that the explorer was married to a Nez Perce Indian woman while he was making his way across the continent to the Pacific. This evidence was brought to Congressman. Dixon by Mary Clark, the granddaughter of William Clark, the direct descendant of the explorer. So convincing was the evidence that the congressman was convinced of the truth of the story. Mary Clark is the daughter of Tzi Kal Tzae, who was born in the Lolo valley about 1S07. He called himself "Me Clark," and had the sandy hair of his father, the explorer. "Me Clark," son of the explorer, was killed in a fight with the soldiers o General Miles" in' the Bear Paw mountains on Snake creek in the fall of 1877. , It was between the months of May and September Sep-tember in 1S05 that Captain Clark fell a victim to the dusky wiles of his Indian sweetheart. The Nez Perce Indians treated the exploring party kindly and a stop of sonie time was made among them, while the party w"as preparing to descend the great divide. The little Nez Perce maiden looked with wonder at the strange white man and would wander forth from her Jepee in the moonlight moon-light to watch the tent in which he slept. The explorer noticed her apparent devotion and( he, too, took a fancy to the Indian girl and under the open skies they were married. The Indian bride accompanied the explorer to the coast," learn-, ing to speak English, and returned with him to her own country where her son wa3 born. -There were probable vows and promises at the parting. Who knows Anyhow, the whit man went on and the Indian maiden remained with her people and her child. "Me Clark," the son, or "Ta Lac," as the Indian pronounced it, learned English from his mother. He was known to many prominent promi-nent old time residents of Montana, among them being Judge Hiram Knowles and Judge F. H. Woody. To them he often talked of his father and I his mother's marriage. The granddaughter still has a trace of the Clark red "hair, her own being sandy. The people of Missoula are making up a pool and . will send Mary Clark, the granddaughter, now 50 years old, and her children, to the Lewis and Clark fair at Portland. |