Part 23 (1/2)
”Easy as anything,” said Billy, ”only the best way is to go by car from my place. Lots of folks go every day, from b.u.t.te, Helena, all these towns all along the valleys. Perfectly good road, and that's faster than a pack train.”
”That's what I have been promising my party!” said Uncle d.i.c.k. ”But they shall not go fis.h.i.+ng until they have got a complete notion of how all this country lies and how Lewis and Clark got through it.”
”They hardly ever were together any more, in here,” said Rob. ”First one, then the other would scout out ahead. And they both were sick.
Clark was laid up after he met the boat party at the Forks, and Lewis took his turn on ahead. What good sports they were!”
”Yes,” said John, ”and what good sports the men were! They'd had to track and pole up here, all the way from the Falls, and at night they were worn out. Grub was getting scarce and they hadn't always enough to keep strong on. And above the Forks they had to wade waist deep in ice water, for hours, slipping on the stones, in their moccasins, and their teeth chattering. I'll bet they hated the sight of a beaver, for it was the beaver dams that kept all the sh.o.r.es full of willows and bayous, so they couldn't walk and track the boat, but had to take to the stream bed. Why, the beaver were so bad that Lewis got lost in the dams and had to lie out, one night! And he didn't know where his boats were, either.”
”Well, that's what brought in the first wave of whites,” said Uncle d.i.c.k--”the beaver. Then after they had got the beaver about all trapped out, say fifty years, in came the placer mines. Then came the deep lode mines--silver and copper. And then the farmers. Eh, Billy?”
”Sure,” said Billy. ”And then the tourists! Lots of folks that run dude ranches make more than they could raising hay. The Gallatin Valley, above me, is settled solid. It's the finest black-land farm country in all the Rockies, and pretty as a picture. So's the Beaverhead Valley, and all these others, pretty, too. Irrigation now, instead of sluices; and lots of the dry farmers from below go up to b.u.t.te and work in the mines in the wintertime--eight or ten thousand men in mines there all the time.”
”And all because we'd bought this country from Napoleon!” said John.
”I'm reading about that,” said Billy. ”I've got lots of books and maps, and, living right in here, I've spent a lot of time studying out where Lewis and Clark went. I tell it to you, they just naturally hot-footed it plumb all through here, one week after another. They did more travel, not knowing a thing about one foot of this country, and got over more of it, and knew more about it every day, than any party of men since then have done in five times the time they took.”
”And didn't know where they were, or what would be next,” a.s.sented John. ”Those chaps were the real, really real thing!”
In this way, pa.s.sing through or near one town after another, traveling, talking, hurrying, too busy in camp to loaf an hour, our young explorers under their active leaders exceeded the daily average of William Clark to the point where, above the present power dam, the valley of the Missouri opens out above the Canon into that marvelous landscape which not even a century of occupancy has changed much, and which lay before them, wildly but pleasingly beautiful, now as it had for the first adventurers.
”And it's ours!” said Rob, jealously. He took off his hat as he stood gazing down over the splendid landscape from the eminence which at that time they had surmounted.
”Down near the power dam, somewhere,” said Billy, ”is where Clark must have struck into the river again from the trail he'd followed. He was about all in, and his feet in bad shape, but he would not give up. Then he lit on out ahead again, and was first at the Forks.”
”Why, you've read the _Journal_, too!” said John, and Billy nodded, pleasantly.
”Why, yes, I think every man who lives in Montana ought to know it by heart. Yes, or in America. I'd rather puzzle it all out, up in here, than read anything else that we get in by mail.
”My dad was all over here in early days. Many a tale he told of the placers and the road agents--yes, and of the Vigilantes, too, that cleaned out the road agents and made it safe in here, to travel or live.”
”Was your father a Vigilante, sir?” asked Jesse.
”Well now, son,” grinned Billy, ”since you ask me, I more'n half believe he was! But you couldn't get any of those old-time law-and-order men to _admit_ they'd ever been Vigilantes. They kept it mighty secret. Of course, when the courts got in, they disbanded. But they'd busted up the old Henry Plummer's gang and hung about twenty of the road agents, by that time. They was some active--both sides.”
At last the party, after a week of steady horse work, pitched their little camp about mid-afternoon at the crest of a little promontory from which they commanded a marvelous view of the great valley of the Three Forks. On either hand lay a beautiful river, the Gallatin at their feet, a little town not far, the Jefferson but a little way.
”I know where this is!” exclaimed John. ”I know----”
”Not a word, John!” commanded Uncle d.i.c.k. ”Enjoy yourselves now, in looking at this valley. After we've taken care of the horses and made camp, I'll see how much you know.”
CHAPTER XXIII
SUNSET ON THE OLD RANGE
They completed their camp on the high point which they had reached.
Billy brought in n.i.g.g.e.r's panniers full of wood for the cooking fire, and they had water in the desert bag which always was part of their camp equipment, so they needed not seek a more convenient spot; nor would they have exchanged this for any other.
”We've seen many a view, fellows,” said John, as the 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.”