Near the mouth of the river which the explorers named Quicksand River (now Sandy), they met a party of fifteen Indians who had lately been down to the mouth of the Columbia.

These people told the white men that they had seen three vessels at anchor below, and, as these must needs be American, or European, the far-voyaging explorers were naturally pleased.

When they had camped that night, they received other visitors of whom the journal makes mention:-- "A canoe soon after arrived from the village at the foot of the last rapid, with an Indian and his family, consisting of a wife, three children, and a woman who had been taken prisoner from the Snake Indians, living on a river from the south, which we afterward found to be the Multnomah.

Sacajawea was immediately introduced to her, in hopes that, being a Snake Indian, they might understand each other; but their language was not sufficiently intelligible to permit them to converse together.

The Indian had a gun with a brass barrel and cock, which he appeared to value highly." The party had missed the Multnomah River in their way down, although this is one of the three largest tributaries of the Columbia, John Day's River and the Des Chutes being the other two.