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

three stood near the edge of the little promontory almost in the village, “but of them all, in any country, all up this river, and all the way north to Kadiak Island, or to the Arctic Circle—nothing that touches this.”

They had hurriedly finished their evening meal. Their robes were spread on the ground, their guns and rod cases lay at the saddles or against the panniers. Their maps, journals, and books lay on the robes before them. But they all turned to take in the beauties of the summer sunset now unfolding its vast screen of vivid coloring in the West. Thence they looked, first up one valley and then another, not so much changed, in spite of the occasional fields.

“Of course,” said John, after a time, “we know this spot, and know why you and Mr. Billy brought us here. It’s the Fort Rock of Meriwether Lewis—it couldn’t be anything else!”

Uncle Dick smiled and nodded.

“That’s what she is,” nodded Billy. “Right here’s where Cap’n Lewis stood and where he said was a good place for a fort—so high, you see, so no Indians could jump them easy. But they never did build the first fur fort here; that was higher up, on the Jefferson, little ways.

“Up yonder’s the Gallatin—we’re up her valley a little way. My ranch is up in ten miles. Yonder used to be quite a little town like, right down below us. Yon’s the railroad, heading for the divide, where we came over from Prickly Pear. Other way, upstream, is the railroad to Butte. Yon way lies the Madison; she heads off southeast, for Yellowstone Park. And yon’s the main Jefferson; and the Madison joins her just a little way up. And you’ve seen the Gallatin come in—the swiftest of the three.

“Now what would you do, if you was Lewis?” he added. “And which way would you head if you wanted to find the head of the true Missouri and get on across the Rockies?

“You see, we’re in a big pocket of the Rockies here—the great Continental Divide sweeps away down south in a big curve here—made just so these three rivers and their hundred creeks could fan out in here. She’s plumb handsome even now, and she was plumb wild then. What would you do? Which river would you take?”

“I’d scout her out,” said John.

“They did. You look in your book and you’ll find that, while Lewis was in here Clark was nigh about forty miles above here; he plumb wore his men out, twenty-five miles the first day above the Forks, twelve miles the next. That was up the Jefferson, you see; they picked it for the real Missouri, you see, because it was fuller and quieter.

“They didn’t waste any time, either of them, on the Gallatin. That left the Madison. So Clark comes back down the Jefferson and they forded her, away above the Forks—no horses, on foot, you see—and near drowned that trifling fellow Chaboneau, the Indian girl’s husband.

“Then Clark—he wasn’t never afraid of getting lost or getting drowned, and he never did get lost once—he strikes off across the ridges, southeast, heading straight for the Madison, just him and his men, and I’ll bet they was good and tired by now, for they’d walked all the way from Great Falls, hunting Indians, and hadn’t found one yet, only plenty tracks.

“So he finds the Madison all right, and comes down her to the Forks. And there—July 27th, wasn’t it, the Journal says?—he finds Lewis and all eight of the canoes and all of the folks, in camp a mile above the Forks, just as easy and as natural as if they hadn’t ever known anything except just this country here. Of course, they had met almost every day, but not for two days now.

“By that time they had their camp exactly on the spot where that Indian girl had been captured by the Minnetarees six or eight years earlier. She’d had a long walk, both ways! But she was glad to get back home! Nary Indian, though now it was getting time for all the Divide Indians to head down the river, over the two trails, to the Falls, where the buffalo were.”

“That’s a story, Billy!” said Jesse. Billy stopped, abashed, forgetting how enthusiasm had carried him on.

“Go ahead,” said Uncle Dick.

“Well, you see, I read all about it all, and I get all het up, even now,” said Billy; “me raised right in here, and all.”

“No apologies, Billy. Go on.”

“Well then, by now Clark, he was right nigh all in. His feet was full of thorns and he had a boil on his ankle, and he’d got a fever from drinking cold water when he was hot—or that’s how he figured it. Nothing had stopped him till now. But now he comes in and throws down on a robe, and he says, ‘Partner, I’m all in. I haven’t found a Indian. But I allow that’s the branch to follow.’

“He points up the Jefferson. Maybe the Indian girl said so, too, but I think they’d have taken the Jefferson, anyhow. They all agreed on that.

“Now I’ve heard that the Indian girl kept pointing south and saying that over that divide—that would be over the Raynolds Pass—was water that led to the ocean. I don’t know where they get that. Some say the Indian girl went up the Madison with Clark. She didn’t; she was with Lewis at the boats all the time. Some say that Clark got as far south as the cañon of the Madison, northwest of the Yellowstone Park. He didn’t and couldn’t. Even if he did and was alone, that wouldn’t have led him over Raynolds Pass. That’s a hundred miles, pretty near.

“I wonder what would have happened to them people, now, if they all had picked the wrong branch and gone up the Madison? If they’d got on Henry’s Lake, which is the head of one arm of the Snake, and had got started on the Snake waters—good night! We’d never have heard of them again.

“But I don’t think the Indian girl knew anything much about the Snake, though her people hunted all these branches. Her range was on the Jefferson. She was young, too. Anyhow, that’s what they called the Missouri, till she began to peter out. That was where they named this place where we are now. They concluded, since all the three rivers run so near even, and split so wide, they’d call them after three great men, Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin. But that wasn’t till two weeks after they’d left the Forks. Most folks thought they’d sprung the names as soon as they seen the Forks, but they didn’t.

“Lots of people right in here, too, even now, they think that Lewis and Clark wintered right here at the Forks or on up near Dillon. I’ve heard them argue that and get hot over it. Some said they wintered on an island, near Dillon. Of course, they allow that Lewis and Clark got across, but they say they was gone three years, not two. That’s about as much as the old Journal is known to-day!

“Me living in here, I know all the creeks from here to the Sawtooth and Bitter Roots, and my dad knew them, and I’ll tell you it’s a fright, even now, to follow out exactly where all they went, or just how they got over. The names on most of their creeks are changed now, so you can’t hardly tell them. About the best book to follow her through on is that railroad man, Wheeler. He took a pack train, most ways, and stayed with it.

“People get all mixed up on the old stuff, because we travel by rail now, so much. For instance, Beaverhead Rock—and that’s been a landmark ever since Lewis and Clark come through—is disputed even now. You can start a fight down at Dillon any time by saying that their Beaverhead Rock is really Rattlesnake Rock—though I’ll have to own it looks a lot more like a beaver than the real rock does. That real one now is mostly called the Point of Rocks.

“That’s the way it goes, you see—everything gets all mixed up. The miners named a lot of the old Lewis and Clark streams all over again. Boulder Creek once was Frazier’s Creek; Philosophy Creek they changed to Willow Creek, just to be original. The Blacktail, away up in, was first named after McNeal, and the North Boulder, this side of there, was first called after Fields. The Pipestone used to be the Panther. You know the Big Hole River, of course, where Butte gets the city water piped from—used to be fine fishing till they spoiled it by fishing it to death—well, that was called Wisdom River by Lewis. And I think if he’d been right wise, he’d have left his boats at the mouth and started right up there, on foot, and not up the Jefferson. She was shallow, but if he’d only known it, she’d have led him to the Divide easier than the way they went, and saved a lot of time. But, of course, they didn’t know that.”

“Go on, Billy, go on!” said Rob, eagerly. “You’re the first man I ever knew who’d actually been over this ground in here. All we’ve done has been to read about it; and that’s different. A country on a map is one thing, but a country lying out of doors on the ground is different.”

“I’ll agree to that,” said Billy. “If you ever once figure out a country by yourself, you never get lost in it again. You can easy get lost with a map and a compass.

“Well now, the miners changed more names, too. It was on Willard’s Creek, named after one of the Lewis and Clark men, that they found the gold at Bannack camp. They called that Grasshopper Creek and left poor Willard out. And then they called the Philanthropy River, which comes in from the south, opposite to the Wisdom—Lewis called them that because Thomas Jefferson was so wise and so philanthropic, you know—well, they changed that to the Stinking Water!

“Yet ‘Philanthropy’ would have been a good name for that. On one of the side creeks to it they found Alder Gulch in 1863; and Alder Gulch put Montana on the map and started the bull outfits moving out from Benton, at the head of navigation. That’s where Virginia City is now. Nice little town, but not wild like she was.

“Now, the old trail—where the road agents used to waylay the travelers—led from Bannack to the Rattlesnake, down the Rattlesnake to the Jefferson, down the Jefferson to the Beaverhead Rock, then across the Jefferson and over the Divide to Philanthropy. And that was one sweet country to live in, in those days, my dad said! The road agents had a fine organization, and they knew every man going out with dust. So they’d lay in wait and kill him. They killed over a hundred men, that way, till the Vigilantes broke in on them. The best men in early Montana were among the Vigilantes—all the law-and-order men were. But right from where we’re standing now, on the Lewis Rock, you’re looking over one of the wildest parts of this country, or any other country. You ought to read Langford’s book, Vigilante Days and Ways. I’ve got that in my library, up at my ranch, too.”

“You know your part of this country mighty well, Billy,” said Uncle Dick, after a time. “I’ve known you did, for a long time.”

“I love it, that’s all!” said the young ranchman.

“Now what shall we do, sir?” he added, after a time; “go on up to my ranch, or go on to the mouth of the Columbia River, or