The Young Alaskans on the Missouri Part 18

"Lewis took a few men and went up the Marias for about sixty miles. They came back down the Marias, and decided on the left-hand fork, against the judgment of every man but Clark.

"His reasoning is good. The men all pointed out that the right-hand fork was roily, boiling, and rolling, exactly like the Missouri up which they had come, whereas the other fork was clear. But Lewis said that this showed that the Marias ran through plains country and did not lead close to the Rockies, from which the water would run clearer; and they did not want to skirt the mountains northerly, but to cross them, going west.

"Lewis had an old English map, made by a man named Arrowsmith, based on reports of a Hudson's Bay trader named Fidler, who had gone a little south of the Saskatchewan and made some observations. Now look at your _Journal_, and see what Lewis thought of Mr. Fidler.

"The latter marked a detached peak at forty-five degrees lat.i.tude. Yet Lewis--who all this time has been setting down his own lat.i.tude and longitude from his frequent observations--makes the Marias as forty-seven degrees, twenty-four minutes, twelve and eight-tenths seconds. He says:

"'The river must therefore turn much to the south between this and the rocky mountain to have permitted Mr. Fidler to have pa.s.sed along the eastern border of these mountains as far south as nearly 45 without even seeing it.... Capt. Clark says its course is S. 29 W. and it still appeared to bear considerably to the W. of South.... I think therefore that we shall find that the Missouri enters the rocky mountains to the North of 45. We did take the liberty of placing his discoveries or at least the Southern extremity of them about a degree farther North ... and I rather suspect that actual observations will take him at least one other degree further North. The general course of Marias river ... is 69 W. 59'.'

"Lewis also figured that Fidler in his map showed only small streams coming in from the west, 'and the presumption is very strong that those little streams do not penetrate the Rocky Mountains to such distance as would afford rational grounds for a conjecture that they had their sources near any navigable branch of the Columbia.' He was right in that--and he says those little creeks may run into a river the Indians called the Medicine River. Now that is the Sun River, which does come in at the Falls, but which Lewis had never seen!

"Again, the Minnetaree Indians had told him, in their long map-making talks at the Mandan winter quarters, that the river near the Falls was clear, as he now saw this stream. The Minnetarees told him the Missouri River interlocked with the Columbia. And as he was now straight west of the Minnetarees, he figured that when they went hunting to the head of the Missouri, as they had, they couldn't have pa.s.sed a river big as this south fork without mentioning it. And the Indians said that the Falls were a 'little south of the sunset' from the Mandans--and Lewis had his lat.i.tude to show he was still on that line and ought to hold to it.

"Lastly, he reasoned that so large a river must penetrate deeply into the Rockies--and that was what he wanted. He knew it could not rise in dry plains. So, relying on his Minnetarees and his horse sense, and not on Mr. Fidler, Lewis refused to go any farther north, because he could not figure out there a big river penetrating into the Rockies. He was absolutely right, as well as very shrewd and wise.

"Now, reasoning at first shot, the _voyageurs_ would have gone up the Marias. Cruzatte especially, their best riverman, was certain the Marias was the true Missouri. They would then maybe have met the Blackfeet and would never have crossed the Rockies; which would have meant failure, if not death; whereas this cold-headed, careful young man, Meriwether Lewis, by a chain of exact reasoning on actual data, went against the judgment of the entire party and chose the left-hand fork, which we know is the true Missouri; and which we'll find hard enough to follow to its head, even to-day.

"Think over that, boys. Do you begin to see what a man must be, to be a leader? We have had plenty of Army men in Western exploration since then, plenty of engineers who could spell. But in all the records you'll not find one example of responsibility handled as quietly and decisively as that. You must remember the pressure he was under. It would have been so easy to take the united conviction of all these old, grizzled, experienced _voyageurs_ and hunters.

"Well, if Clark and he argued over it, at least that is not known. But all the men took the decision of the two leaders without a whimper. I think the personnel of that party must have been extraordinary. And their leaders proved their judgment later.

"Now, with poor Sacagawea expected to die, and with all the responsibility on their shoulders, our captains acted as though they had no doubts. If they did have, Lewis solved it all when he ascended the Marias on his way home next year.

"Now the water was getting swift. They knew nothing of what was ahead, but their load was heavy. So now they hid their biggest boat in the willows on an island, at the mouth of the Marias, and dug a _cache_ for a great deal of their outfit--axes, ammunition, casks of provisions, and much superfluous stuff. They dug this bottle shaped, as the old fur traders did, lined it with boughs and gra.s.s and hides, filled it in and put back the cap sod--all the dirt had been piled on skins, so as not to show. Stores would keep for years when buried carefully in this way.

"So now, lighter of load, but still game--with Cruzatte playing the fiddle for the men to dance of evenings--on June 12th they 'set out and proceeded on,' leaving this great and historical fork of the water road on the morning of June 12th, with Sacagawea so very sick that the captains took tender care of her all the trip, though they speak slightingly of Chaboneau, her husband, who seems to have been a bit of a mutt. One of the men has a felon on his hand; another with toothache has taken cold in his jaw; another has a tumor and another a fever. Three canoes came near being lost; and it rained. But they 'proceeded on,' and on that day they first saw the Rockies, full and fair! And three days later Lewis found the Great Falls, hearing the noise miles away, and seeing the great cloud of mist arising above the main fall.

"And then they found the eagle's nest on the cottonwood island, of which the Minnetarees had told them. And then Sacagawea got well, and gave the O.K. after her delirium had gone! And then every man, woman, and child in that party agreed that their leaders were safe to follow!

"It took them one month to get over that eighteen miles portage. That made five weeks they had lost here out of direct travel. But they never did lose courage, never did reason wrong, and never did go back one foot. Leadership, my boys! And both those captains, Lewis especially, had a dozen close calls for death, with bears, floods, rattlesnakes, gun-shot, and accidents of all kinds. Their poor men also were in bad case many a time, but they held through. No more floggings now, this side of Mandan--maybe both men and captains had learned something about discipline."

Their leader ceased for the time, and turned, hat in hand, to the ruined quadrangle of adobe, the remnants of old Fort Benton. The boys also for a moment remained silent. Jesse approached and touched the sleeve of his Uncle d.i.c.k.

"I wouldn't have missed this for anything," said he. "I can see how they all must have felt when they got here, where they could see out over the country once more. Do you suppose it was right here that they stood?"

John was ready with his copy of the _Journal_, which now the boys all began to prize more and more.

"Here it is," said he, "all set down in the finest story book I ever read in all my life. Captain Lewis and Captain Clark say they

"'stroled out to the top of the hights in the fork of these rivers, from whence we had an extensive and most inchanting view. The country in every direction about was one vast plain in which innumerable herds of Buffalow were seen attended by their shepperds the wolves; the solatary antalope which now had there young were distributed over its face, some herds of Elk were also seen; the verdure perfectly cloathed the ground, the wether was plesent and fair; to the South we saw a range of lofty mountains which we supposed to be a continuation of the Snow Mountains stretching themselves from S.E. to N.W. terminating abruptly about S.West from us, these were partially covered with snow; behind these Mountains and at a great distance a second and more lofty range of mountains appeared to strech across the country in the same direction with the others, reaching from West, to the N. of N.W.--where their snowy tops lost themselves beneath the horizon, the last range was perfectly covered with snow.'"

"Does it check up, boys?" Uncle d.i.c.k smiled. "I think it does, except that our old ruins are not right where they then stood on the Missouri.

The river mouth is below here. There is a high tongue of land between the Teton River, just over there, where it runs close along the Missouri, two or three hundred yards away, but I hardly think that was where they stood.

"But though the works of man have changed many times, and themselves been changed by time, the works of G.o.d are here, as they were in June of 1805--except that the wild game is gone forever.

"Lewis or Clark could not dream that in 1812 a steamboat would go down the Ohio and the Mississippi; nor that some day a steamboat would land here, close to the Marias River.

"But after Lewis and Clark the fur traders poured up here. Then came the skin hunters and their Mackinaws, following the bull boats which took some _voyageurs_ downstream. Then the river led the trails west, and the bull outfits followed the pack trains. So when the adventurers found gold at the head of the Missouri they had a lane well blazed, surely.

"Fort Benton was not by any means the first post to be located at or near this great point, the mouth of the Marias. In 1831 James Kipp, the father of my friend, Joe Kipp, put up a post here, but he did not try to hold it. The next year D. D. Mitch.e.l.l built Fort McKenzie, about six miles above the Marias, on the left bank--quite a stiff fort, one hundred and twenty by one hundred and forty feet, stockaded--and this stuck till 1843. Then their continual troubles with the Blackfeet drove them out. Then there was Fort Lewis, in the neighborhood, somewhere, in 1845.

"Fort Benton was put up in 1850. And as the early stockades of Booneville and Harrodsburg and Nashville in Kentucky were on 'Dark and b.l.o.o.d.y ground,' so ought the place where we now are standing be called the dark and b.l.o.o.d.y ground of the Missouri River, for this indeed was a focus of trouble and danger, even before the river trade made Benton a tough town."

"Well, the glory of old Benton is gone!" said Rob, at last. "Just the same, I am glad we came here. So this is all there is left of it!"

"Yes, all there is left of the one remaining bastion, or corner tower.

It was not built of timber, but of adobe, which lasted better and was as good a defense and better. Many a time the men of Benton have flocked down to meet the boat, wherever she was able to land; and many a wild time was here--for in steamboat days alcohol was a large part of every cargo. The last of the robes were traded for in alcohol, very largely.

And by 1883, after the rails had come below, the last of the hides were stripped from the last of the innumerable herds of buffalo that Lewis and Clark saw here, at the great fork of the road into the Rockies; and soon the last pelt was baled from the beaver. If you go to the Blackfeet now you find them a thinned and broken people, and the highest ambition of their best men is to dress up in modern beef-hide finery and play circus Indian around the park hotels.

"Well, this was their range, young excellencies, and this was the head of the disputed ground between the Crows, Nez Perces, Flatheads, and Shoshonis, all of whom knew good buffalo country when they saw it.

"And yet, what luck our first explorers had! They surely did have luck, for they had good guidance of the Minnetarees among the Mandans, and then, from the time they left the Mandans until the next fall, beyond the Three Forks of the Missouri, they never saw an Indian of any sort!

At the Great Falls, a great hunting place, they found encampments not more than ten days or so old, but not a soul.

"Thus endeth the lesson for to-day! I'm sorry we haven't a camp to go to to-night instead of a hotel, but I promise to mend that matter for you in a day or so, if Billy Williams is up from Bozeman with his pack train, as I wired him. I said the fifteenth, and this is the thirteenth, so we've two days for the Falls. I wish we didn't know where they were!

I wish I didn't know the Marias isn't the Missouri. I wish--well, at least I can wish that old Fort Benton was here and the whistle of the steamboat was blowing around the bend!"

"Don't, sir!" said Rob. "Please don't!"

"No," said John. "To-day is to-day."

"All the same," said Jesse, "all the same----"

CHAPTER XIX

AT THE GREAT FALLS

"The only thing," said Jesse, as the three young companions later stood together on the bank of the river, looking out; "the only thing is----"

He did not finish his sentence, but stood, his hands thrust into the side pockets of his jacket, his face not wholly happy.

"Yes, Jesse; but what is the only thing?" John smiled, and Rob, tall and neat in his Scout uniform, also smiled as he turned to the youngest of their party. They were alone, Uncle d.i.c.k having gone to town to see about the pack train. They had walked up from their camp below the flourishing city of Great Falls.

"Well, it's all right, I suppose," replied Jesse. "I suppose they have to have cities, of course. I suppose they have to have those big smelters over there and all those other things. Maybe it's not the same.

The buffalo are not here, nor the elk--though the _Journal_ says hundreds of buffalo were washed over the falls and drowned, right along.

Then, the bears are not here any more, though it was right here that they were worst; they had to fight them all the time, and the only wonder was that no one was killed, for those bears were _bad_, believe me----"

"Sure, they must have been," a.s.sented John. "There were so many dead buffalo, below the falls, where they washed ash.o.r.e, that the grizzlies came in flocks, and didn't want to be disturbed or driven away from their grub. And these were the first boats that ever had come up that river, the first white men. So they jumped them. Why, over yonder above the falls were the White Bear Islands; so many bears on them, they kept the camp so scared up all the time, they had to make up a boat party and go over and hunt them off. They used to swim this river like it was a pond, those bears! They kept the party on the alert all day and all night. They had a dozen big fights with them."

"Humph!" Jesse waved an arm to the broad expanse of flat water above the great dam of the power company. "Is that so? Well, that's what I mean.

Where's the big tree with the black eagle's nest? How do we know this is the big portage of the Missouri at all? No islands, no eagle. Yet you know very well it was the sight of that eagle's nest that made Lewis and Clark know for sure that they were on the right river. The Indians didn't say anything about the Marias River being there at all; they never mentioned that to either Clark or Lewis when they made their maps in the winter with the Mandans. But they did mention that eagle nest on the island at the big falls--they thought everybody would notice that--and when you come to think of it, that did nail the thing to the map--no getting around the nest on the island at the falls.

"Oh, I suppose this town's all right, way towns go. Only thing is, they ought not to have spoiled the island and the eagle nest with their old dam. How do we know this is the place?"