The Young Alaskans on the Missouri by Emerson Hough (world best books to read .TXT) 📖

cordelle work. And, using gas motors, the boys wouldn’t have much chance of any real sport and exercise, which, of course, I want them to have every summer when possible.

“Get your map, John—the big government map—and let’s have a look at this country in west of here.”

John complied. They all bent over the map, which they spread down on the floor of the tent. Their gasoline camp lantern shed its brilliant light over them all as they bent down in study of the map.

“You’ll see now that we’re almost at the farthest north point on the Missouri River. From here it runs almost west to the Great Falls, and then almost south. Now our new railroad (the Great Northern Railroad) will take us to the Great Falls of the Missouri, but it by no means follows the Missouri. On the contrary, a little over two hundred miles from here, I’d guess, it strikes the Milk River—as Lewis and Clark called it—and follows that river half across the state of Montana. It would carry us out to the Blackfeet Reservation, and what is now Glacier Park—my own hunting ground among the Blackfeet, where I knew Joe Kipp—but that is entirely off the map for us.”

“Why, sure it is!” said Jesse, following the line of the river with his finger. “Look it! It runs away south, hundreds of miles, into the southwest corner of the state; and the railroad goes almost to Canada. And there’s a lot of river between here and Great Falls, too—bad water, you say?”

“And see here where the Yellowstone goes!” added Rob. “It’s away below the Missouri, a hundred, a hundred and fifty miles in places—no railroads and no towns.”

“No,” remarked their leader, “but one of the real wild places of the West in its day—as cow range or hunting range, that wild and broken country in there had no superior, and not many men know all of it even now. Part of it is wonderfully beautiful.

“At no part of the journey did Lewis and Clark have more exciting adventures than in precisely this country that we’ve got to skip, too. The buffalo fairly swarmed, and elk and antelope and bighorn sheep and blacktail deer were all around them all the time. It was a wonderful new world for them. How many of the great fighting grizzlies they met in that strip of the river, I wouldn’t like to say, but in almost every instance it meant a fight, until half the crew would no longer go after a grizzly, they were so scared of them. One they shot through eight times, and it chased the whole party even then. I tell you, those bears were bad!

“But we’d not see one now—they’re all gone, every one. Nor would we see a bighorn—besides, they are protected by a continuous closed season in Montana. Pretty country, yes, wild and bold and risky; but better coming down than going up. We miss some grand scenery, but save a month’s time, maybe.

“But now see here—about halfway out to the Blackfeet is Havre Junction. There we can take a train southwest to the town of Great Falls; and above there we can stop at the mouth of the Marias River. Between there and the Falls is Fort Benton, and that is one of the most important points, in a historical way, there was on the whole river, although its glory departed long ago. From there we’d get to our pack train and be off for the head of the Missouri. What do you think, Rob?”

Rob was silent for a time. “Well,” said he, at length, “I think we’d get pretty much a repetition of the river work, and not much sport—hard river, too.

“Now, it would be fine to go to old Benton by river, to the head of navigation; but we know that Fort Benton was not one of the early fur posts—indeed, it came in when the last of the buffalo were being killed. It was where the traveling traders got their goods, and where the bull outfits got their freight in 1863 for the placer mines of Montana and was the outfit place for Bozeman and all those early points. But that was after the fur trade was over.”

“That’s right,” said Uncle Dick. “First came the explorers; then the fur traders; then the miners; then the cow men; then the farmers. The end of the buffalo came in 1883—a million robes that year; and the next, none at all—the most terrible wild-life tragedy that ever was known. After that came the cattle and the sheep and the irrigation men.”

He sat musing for the time.

“But listen now to a little more of the early stuff. You, Jesse, do you follow up the Yellowstone with your finger till you come to the mouth of the Big Horn River. Got it?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Jesse. “Here she is.”

“All right. Now, at that place, in the year 1807—the next year after Lewis and Clark got back home—a shrewd St. Louis trader by name of Manuel Lisa, of Spanish descent he was, heard all those beaver stories, and he pushed up the Missouri and up the Yellowstone, and built a post called Fort Manuel there. He wanted to trade with the Blackfeet and Crows both, but found those tribes were enemies. He couldn’t hold the fort. He dropped back to St. Louis and formed the first of the great fur companies, the Missouri River Company. They were the pioneers of many later companies.

“The Missouri River Company had their post at the Three Forks of the Missouri—away up yonder, eight hundred miles from here—as early as 1810; that was crowding Lewis and Clark pretty fairly close, eh? Well, then came the Rocky Mountain Company, and the American Fur Company, and the Pacific Fur Company, and the Columbia Fur Company, and I don’t know how many other St. Louis partnerships up-river—not mentioning the pack-train outfits under many names—and so all at once, as though by magic, there were posts strung clear to the head of the river—one hundred and forty of them, as I have told you. And of them all you could hardly find a trace of one of them to-day.

“There’s dispute even as to the site of Fort Union, which was just above here and up the river a little above the Yellowstone. That was built in 1828.

“Long before that, and for twenty years after that, the fur traders kept on building, until the mouth of every good-sized river running into the Missouri had not only one, but sometimes three or four posts, all competing all or part of the time! Risky business it was. Some made fortunes; most of them died broke. Well, I reckon they had a good run for their money, eh?”

“And when did it end?” asked the Mandan friend, who had sat an absorbed listener to a story, the most of which was new to him.

“It has not ended yet,” answered Uncle Dick. “St. Louis is to-day the greatest fur market in the world, though now skunk and coon and rat have taken the place of beaver and buffalo and wolf. But within the past four years a muskrat pelt has sold for five dollars. In 1832 the average price for the previous fifteen years had been twenty cents for a rat-hide—many a boy in my time thought he was rich if he got ten cents. A buffalo robe averaged three dollars; a beaver pelt, four dollars; an otter, three dollars. Think of what they bring now! Well, the demand combs the country, that’s all.

“But in 1836 beaver slumped—because that was the year the silk hat was invented. Did you know that? And in 1883 the buffalo robes ended. I’d say that 1850 really was about the end of the big days of the early fur trade—what we call the upper-river trade.”

Rob put his hand down over the map. “And here it was,” said he, “in this country west of here, up the Yellowstone, up the Missouri, all over and in between!”

“Quite right, yes,” his companion nodded. “Of all the days of romance and adventure in the Far West, those were the times and this was the place—from here west, up the great waterway and its branches.

“No one can estimate the value of the Missouri River to the United States. It made more history for us than the Mississippi itself. It made our first maps—the fur trade did that. It led us across and got us Oregon. It led us to the placers which settled Montana. It took the first horses and wagons and plows into the upper country in its day, as well as the first rifles and steel traps. It brought us into war with the Indians, and helped us win the war. It carried our hunters up to the buffalo, and carried all the buffalo down, off from the face of the earth. And it rolls and boils and tumbles on its way now as it did when the great bateaux swept down its flood, over a hundred miles a day, loaded with robes and furs.”

“I wish we could see it all!” grumbled Jesse, again.

“You can see it all now, Jess,” said his uncle, “better than you could if you plugged up its stream without looking at a map or book. And even if you did look at both, you’ve got to see the many different periods the old Missouri has had in its history, and balance one against the other.

“Dates are not of so much importance, but reasons for great changes are important. If I had to select just one date in Western history, do you know what that would be?”

“Eighteen hundred and four, when our men started up with the flag!” said Rob.

Uncle Dick shook his head.

“Eighteen hundred and six, when they got back,” ventured Jesse.

“No.”

“Eighteen hundred and forty-eight, when they found gold in California!” said John.

“No! Great years, yes, and the discovery of gold was a great event in changing all the country. But to the man who really has studied all the story of the Missouri River, I believe that the year 1836 was about the pivotal date. And it only marks the invention of the silk hat! But that year the plow began to take the place of the steel trap in the way of making a living in the West. That was the year, I might say, when the mystery and romance of the unknown West found their end, and the day began of what we call business and civilization.

“That’s all. Go to bed, fellows. Our friend has been most kind to us, and we have to get him a good breakfast in the morning, since he must leave us then.”

The Mandan friend rose and put out his hand. “I want to thank you, sir,” he said. “I’m in your debt. I wish my own boys were along with this party.”

The next day they parted and the young Alaskans were speeding west by rail, making the great jump of about six hundred miles, between the mouth of the Yellowstone and the Great Falls of the Missouri.

CHAPTER XVIII WHERE THE ROAD FORKED

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Well, fellows,” began Rob, “this is a place I’ve always wanted to see. I’ve read about old Fort Benton many a time. Now, here we are!”

The little party stood curiously regarding an old and well-nigh ruined square structure of sun-dried brick, not far from which lay yet more dilapidated remnants of what once had been the walls and buildings of an old abode inclosure. They were on their third day out from the mouth of the Yellowstone River, having come by rail, and were spending the day at Fort Benton, between the junction point of Havre and the modern city of Great