The Young Alaskans on the Missouri Part 30

His fly had been taken by a great fish which had made for it a dozen feet away. The rod went up into an arch. Again and again the fish sprang high above the water, four, five, six times, one leap after another; and then came a long, steady savage run which carried Jesse down along the bank, following the fish. He had all he could do to master the powerful fish, but, keeping on a steady pressure, he at last got him close insh.o.r.e, where John netted him.

"That's a steelhead--that's why he's such a jumper!" exclaimed John.

"Well done, Jess!" exclaimed John, holding up the splendid fish to view.

"Six pounds, if he's an ounce!"

A sudden shout from Rob, across the water, called their attention. He also was playing a heavy fish, which broke water again and again.

"What you got, Rob?" called John.

"Rainbow!" answered Rob, across the stream. "He's a buster, too!" And truly it was a fine one, for that night it weighed five and three-quarter pounds.

"Hurry, John--your turn now!" shouted Jess. "They're the fightingest fish you ever saw."

John began casting, while Jesse watched, working his fly to where he saw a heavy fish moving. An instant and he struck, the reel screeching as the fish made its run. This time the fish did not jump, but played deep, boring and surging, but at last John conquered it and Jesse slipped the net under it.

"My! It's just like a big brook trout," said he. "I'll bet he'll go over five pounds."

"No," said John, sagely. "That's a Dolly Varden--looks a lot like a brook trout, but look at the blue ring around the red spots. They fight deep--don't jump like a rainbow. But the steelhead out jumps them all!

Did you ever see such fishing! This beats the Arctic trout on Rat Portage."

They followed down the pond made by the dam, and literally one or other of the three was all the time playing a fish, and they all ran very large. When at last they answered the supper horn, Rob had five fish, John four, and Jesse two--the last a fine, fat grayling, the first he had ever taken below the Arctic Circle.

Uncle d.i.c.k's eyes opened very wide. "Well, Billy," said he, "you've made good! I never saw so many big trout taken that soon in any water I ever knew!"

"They get a lot of feed in that stream," said Billy. "The watercress holds a lot of stuff they eat, and there must be minnows in there, too.

I've heard lots of men say that, for big fish, this beats any water they ever knew."

"Oh, maybe they don't run as big as they did," said Mrs. Culver; "I've known several rainbows over ten pounds taken here. One gentleman came for specimens to mount, and he caught a five-pound rainbow, but his friend made him throw it back because it was too little. Then they fished two days and didn't get any more rainbow at all; they're so savage, I think they get caught first. But you've got some good ones, haven't you? Well, I like to see a person have some sport when he comes here."

"How long have you lived here, Mrs. Culver?" asked Billy, that night at the dinner table.

"Oh, all my life, it seems," she laughed. "I was here early, in the 'nineties, when Mr. Brower came to get to the head of h.e.l.l Roaring. That was in 1895. He and my husband, Mr. William N. Culver, and Mr. Isaac Jacques went up there horseback. They called that h.e.l.l Roaring Canon then, and I think most folks do yet, though Mr. Brower as a scientific explorer said he would call it Culver Canon after that. He did, but his story of the exploration never got to be very widely known. I guess they were the first to get to the head, except Indians. The government surveyors never followed out the river above Upper Red Rock Lake.

"They made two tries at it. The first time was August 5, 1895. They left their horses and waded up the creek, till they came to a perpendicular rock across the canon. It was hard going, so they turned back that day.

"On August 29th they tried it again. They went up Horse Camp Creek and left their horses at the foot of Hanson Mountain, and took one pack horse and cut across over Hanson Mountain and then went down into the h.e.l.l Roaring Creek; but they had to leave their pack horse then. Beyond that they took to the stream bed on foot, and this time they got up on top and followed the creek to its source.

"They came back all excited, saying they were the first ever to follow the Missouri to its head. They named a little lake, up near the summit, in a marshy flat, Lilian Lake, after me. Just a little way beyond that they found a big saucer-like spot in the round little hole up there--peaks all around it, like it had sunk down. Well, out of that circular marsh the creek comes. That's the head--the utmost source. The snow from the peaks feeds into that cup, or rather saucer, up on top, back of Mount Jefferson.

"I don't think they went as far toward the actual head as I did myself, for it was late and they had their horses to find. Now on September 26, 1895, I rode horseback up in there with Mr. Allen, and we rode right on up over Hanson, and down into h.e.l.l Roaring, and beyond where they left their pack horse. We rode almost all the way, and got into that Hole in the Mountains, as Mr. Brower calls the depressed valley up on top. But we rode on clear past it, three miles, and found the creek plain that far.

"Almost up to the top of the divide, the creek turns northeast. It comes out from under a big black rock, near a clump of balsam--like my spring here, only not so big. Mr. Brower and Mr. Culver had marked a rock and put down a copper plate for their discovery. I had a tin plate, and I scratched my name and the date on that. There wasn't any mark of anyone else there, and we were quite beyond the place where Mr. Brower stopped.

So maybe I am the first person, certainly the first woman, to see the real upper spring of the Missouri River.

"Now here I am, all alone in the world, as you see. Would you like to see my pressed flowers and my other things?"

The young explorers looked at the tiny, thin little old lady with reverence, and did not say anything for a long time, before they began to look at the treasured belongings of the faraway cabin home.

"Do you boys want to go up?" she asked, after a time.

"We came for that," said Rob.

"You couldn't climb up the canon all the way, maybe. Do you think you could get up over the mountain, the way we did?"

"You don't know these boys," remarked Uncle d.i.c.k to her. "They're old mountain climbers and can go anywhere."

"They'd want a guide, and I couldn't go, now. And they'd want horses."

"Well, we'll leave out the guide, and we could leave out the horses, like enough, for we can go to the foot of the mountain in the car. But on the whole I can think we'll ride up, for a change."

"You can get horses down at the ranch a little way. I have none here now."

"All right. To-morrow we'll outfit for the climb."

"Well, I rode all the way. Now you go on the shoulder of this mountain back of us, above the spring, and work up the best you can, but keep your eye on Jefferson. Get up right high, before you head across to the canon of the Missouri, so you can be above the high cliff that you can't get over in the bed of the stream. Then you go down in the canon and cross, best you can, and then ride up on the far side, and then work off for the top of Jefferson.

"You'll know the little bowl on top the mountain. That's the top sponge.

But the real head stream is even beyond that. You'll find my tin plate there, I guess, with my name and date.

"I'm glad you had some good fishing here. We'll have some of your trout for breakfast. The feather beds are made from wild-goose and duck feathers. It's been a great country for them."

CHAPTER XXIX

THE HEAD OF THE GREAT RIVER

Bright and early they were in the saddle and off for the crowning experience of their long quest for the head of the great Missouri. Billy brought up the horses from the ranch below. The chauffeur from Monida said he "had not lost any mountains" and preferred not to make the ascent, so only five were in the party, Billy, of course, insisting on seeing the head of the river, in which he had had such interest all his life.

They took one pack horse, a few cooking implements, and such blankets as their hostess could spare, their own bed rolls and most of their equipment having gone back to Billy's ranch by his pack train. Their supply of food was only enough for two meals--supper and breakfast--but this gave them two days for the ascent, whereas Mrs. Culver had made it in one; so they felt sure of success.

Well used to mountain work, and guided by a good engineer, their Uncle d.i.c.k, who had spent his life in work among wild countries, they wound easily in and among the shoulders of the hills, taking distance rather than sharp elevation, and so gradually and without strain to the horses working up the mountain that lay at one side of Mount Jefferson. When they were well up, they followed a long hogback that swung a little to the left, and at length turned for their deliberate plunge down into the steep valley of the stream. Here, among heavy tracts of fallen timber and countless tumbled rocks, they came at last to the white water of their river, now grown very small and easily fordable by the horses.

"As near as I can tell," said Uncle d.i.c.k, "we've got her whipped right now. This must be a good way above the place Brower and Culver left their horse. We're up seventy-six hundred and forty feet now by the aneroid. The valley is around seven thousand feet, and Brower makes the summit at eight thousand feet; so we've not so far to go now. We crossed above the upper Red Rock Lake, and Brower makes the whole distance, along the longest branch, only twenty miles from the head spring to the lake. A mile or two should put us at the edge of the Hole in the Mountains, as he calls his upper valley. What do you say--shall we leave our horses and walk it, or try on up in the same way?"

"I vote against leaving the horses," said Rob. "It's nearly always bad to split an outfit, and bad to get away from your base of supplies. I'd say keep to the horses as high as they can get. A good mountain horse can go almost any place a man can, if you leave him alone. If it gets hard to ride, we can walk and lead, or drive them ahead of us over the down timber."

"And then, if we get them up to the Hole, we could camp up in there all night," suggested John. "Like enough, we'd be the first to do that, anyhow."

"And maybe the last," laughed Billy. "It'll sure be cold up in there, with no tent and not much bedding and none too much to eat. We're above the trout line, up here, and not far to go to timber line, if you ask me."

"Not so bad as that, Billy," commented Jesse. "Nine thousand, ninety-five hundred--isn't that about average timber line? We're only eight thousand at our upper valley, and we're not going to climb to the top of the peaks."

"Well, I'm game if you all are," said Billy. "We can make it through for one night, all right, for when the firewood runs out we can make camp and finish on foot."

"Go on ahead, Jesse," said Uncle d.i.c.k. "You're the youngest. Let's see how good a mountain man you are."