Part 23 (2/2)
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 d.i.c.k 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 p.r.i.c.kly Pear. Other way, upstream, is the railroad to b.u.t.te. 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 d.i.c.k.
”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 Pa.s.s--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 canon 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 Pa.s.s. 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.
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