Captain Meriwether, interpreter George Drouillard, and privates Hugh McNeal and John Shields crossed Lemhi Pass on the afternoon of August 12, 1805. Traveling on an Indian road that climbed north out of the narrow Agency Creek Canyon at the foot of the pass, the advance party stopped at a spring along the road, where they found enough dry willow brush for McNeal, their cook, to boil a well-traveled piece of salt pork for supper. Very early the next morning, the four men walked west toward the Lemhi Valley and their historic meeting with the Lemhi Shoshone after traveling about 20 miles.