Part 34 (2/2)

As we know, Clark went but a short distance up the Madison. But when the explorers were going east, as we saw before, Clark came down to the Shoshoni Cove, at the junction where we made our last camp, over west.

When he struck in here, on the Gallatin, Clark had with him the Indian girl, Sacagawea. Besides the Indian woman and her child, he had eleven men and fifty horses. Ordway, as we have seen, had taken nine men and started downstream with the boats. No one knew this country except the Indian girl.

”Yes, and she must have been across here before, too,” said Billy.

”There are three pa.s.ses at the head of the East Gallatin--the Bozeman and the Bridger and the Flathead. The Indian girl told them to take the one farthest south, which is Bozeman Pa.s.s.

”The books say that on July 13th Clark camped just where the town of Logan is, in the Gallatin Valley. They say he followed southeast from there and crossed Bozeman Creek near this town. The Indian girl knew there was a buffalo road there, and they stuck to that. Good authorities think that they camped, July 14th, near where old Fort Ellis afterward was located. That's across the East Gallatin. There is an easy pa.s.s there, and there is no doubt at all that the Indian girl led Clark through that easiest pa.s.s, which the Indians would be sure to find when going between their hunting ranges.

”Of course, old man Bozeman did not come in here until the mining strikes, 1863 or 1864. He was a freighter and knew this country, although he didn't know it well enough to keep from getting killed by the Indians.

”Up the Gallatin, too,” went on Billy, ”is where they say John Colter ran after he got away from the Blackfeet. He didn't have any clothes on to speak of even then--he sure traveled light. But, anyhow, he lived to discover Yellowstone Park, or part of it, and to tell a lot of stories which everybody said were lies.”

”Can we see much of the trail, if we go over with the pack train?” asked Rob.

”Not so very much,” said Billy. ”Even the old road is wiped out, now that the railroad has come. In some places you can find where the trail once ran, or is supposed to have run, but you have to go by the general landmarks now.

”When you come to the central ridge beyond old Ellis, you get the last summit between here and Yellowstone waters. The tunnel runs under that now. The railroad books say that is fifty-five hundred and sixty-five feet--the highest of the three northern transcontinental pa.s.ses.

”So you can figure now, I reckon,” he concluded, ”that you are mighty near at the head of the Gallatin, a day's march from here. And if you want to, you can take the railroad in town, all the way down the Yellowstone and clean on home to Chicago or St. Louis, without getting off the cars.”

”Well, since we are so near the end of the trail, young gentlemen,”

began Uncle d.i.c.k, at this point, ”what do you say we ought to do?”

”Well, the first thing we ought to do,” said John, ”before we go home, is not to leave all those people out in the wilderness. We have got Clark and eleven people here on the Gallatin, and Captain Lewis is away up on the Marias, and Ga.s.s and Ordway are scattered every which way between here and the Great Falls.”

”All right, all right!” rejoined Uncle d.i.c.k. ”Get out your _Journal_ now, and we will see what became of Captain Lewis. We won't follow him day by day, and we will just take up his trail somewhere near Missoula.

”See here, now. He must have crossed what is called Clark's Fork--all of that river, part of which is called h.e.l.l Gate River, ought to be called after Clark. He went up the h.e.l.l Gate River, without any guides, but he must have struck an Indian trail which led him over east. On the fourth day, that is on July 7th, he reached the pa.s.s which is called even now Lewis and Clark's Pa.s.s--the only pa.s.s named after either of those explorers, although only one of them ever saw it.

”Now, you see, they were opposite the headwaters of the Dearborn River--the same stream where Clark left the boats and went up the river on foot when they were going west the preceding year. They knew where they were when they got here, and felt pretty fairly safe.

”But Lewis wanted to see about that country north of the Great Falls.

They were now among the buffalo once more and glad enough to find them.

They hunted down the Sun River to their old camp above the Great Falls.

Here they made a couple of bull boats, and on July 12th they crossed to the old camp and found the _cache_ which they had made there. A good many of the things were spoiled in the _cache_, which they had built too low, so that the high water had flooded it.

”Now they reached their old friends, the white bears, which were just as ferocious as ever. So were the mosquitoes. Lewis dreads these mosquitoes more than anything else.

”Now the _Journal_ says that Lewis determined to go up the Marias River.

He left McNeal, Thompson and Goodrich, Ga.s.s, Frazier and Werner, here at the Falls. He took with him six horses and had along Drewyer and the two Fields boys--about his best hunters. They left Sergeant Ga.s.s four horses, so that he could get the boats around the portage as soon as Ordway and the boats came down the Missouri.

”Now I want you to stop and think how these people were making connections, scattered all through this country as they were. On July 19th, here came Ordway and his nine men with the canoes! Then they doubled party again, to portage, and in four days, with the aid of the horses, they got the stuff all below the Falls. Ga.s.s and one man swam the horses across the river; Ordway and the others took the canoes. They all reached the mouth of the Marias River July 28th. By that time, of course, Clark was over on the Yellowstone, having crossed the Gallatin Pa.s.s from here.

”Now Lewis was on the north side of the river with three men. He knew he was going up into the Blackfeet country, and he must have known something of the reputation of that tribe. But those men would go almost anywhere. Now they were among the buffalo, so they felt safe for food.

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