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Show Stories of j Great Scouts vJL , Western Newspaper Union. SACAGAWEA, 'THE BIRD WOMAN" SCOUT In the Portland (Ore.) city park stands the statue of an Indian woman. A little baby Is strapped on her bock and her hand I outstretched to tho west, toward the Pacific ocean. The statue Is that of Sacagawen, "The Bird Woman," the sixteen-year-old girl scout and guide who led Lewi and Clark over the "Shining Mountains" to the "Everywhere-Snlt-Wnter" toward which her hand points. When Lewi und Clark visited the Hldatsn Indians In North Dakota on their great exploring trip west, they found a Shoshone girl living with that tribe. At tho age of five she had been captured from her people by a Uldatsa war party. When she was fourteen years old, Toussalnt Charbanneau, a French-Canadian trapper, won her from her captor In a game of "hide-' thc-bono" and married her the next year. The Bird Woman wished to return' to her people and Lewis and CInrK1 engaged Charbonneau and his wife as Interpreters to tho Indians they would meet During tho winter of 1805 Saca-. gawca gave birth to a son, whom she called Baptlste, and this tiny papoose went with his dauntless mother through all the hardships which tho explorers afterward endured. Ho was strapped on Sacngawea's back one day when the clumsy Charbanneau upset' ono of the boats containing the precious Instruments and records of the party. The Bird Woman ut onco sprang overboard Into the muddy,' stream and rescued them. , More than once Sacagawen proved her value to the explorers. Far up the river when tho forest and snow baf-' fled her companions and they wero lost, the homing Instinct of the Indian In-dian girl led her on nnd Bhe guided them safely to her people. Tho chief who welcomed them proved to be Saca-gnwea's Saca-gnwea's brother, who was overjoyed to sen his lost sister ngnln. He sold' the whlto men much-needed horses ' and would have stolen them hack, had not the Bird Woman betrayed the plot, to Captain Lewis. i Snciiguwcn remnlned with IxjwIs nnd Clark until they reached the Pu-j clflc. On their return Journey bhe stopped with her people, the Sho-i shoncSt nnd thero shu spent the remainder re-mainder of her days. She died on tluv Wind River reservation In Wyoming April 9, 1801, almost n hundred years of age. |