The Young Alaskans on the Missouri Part 34

"I have got to get back for my haying," said Chet, who had proved himself a fine angler as well as a good companion.

"The same for me," added the young rancher from the head of the lake. So it was agreed that on the next morning they should separate.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

AT BILLY'S RANCH

The blue smoke of their last camp fire on the South Fork rose almost straight in the still air of a clear summer day as their party sat around their last breakfast. Although not actually at the end of their journey, they felt that now they were heading away from these interesting scenes, so that a sort of sadness fell upon them.

"Cheer up, fellows!" said Billy Williams. "You are not out of scenery, nor out of sport yet, by any means, if you want to stop for sport.

Besides, there is one other thing we haven't finished yet," he added turning to Uncle d.i.c.k.

"Feel in your right-hand waistcoat pocket, Jesse," said the latter.

Jesse did so with a smile and produced the black, gla.s.sy-looking arrowhead which he had found at the Beaverhead Rock over to the northward, many days before.

"We are a few miles west of the Yellowstone Park here," said Uncle d.i.c.k.

"We will have quite a party in our car with all the luggage, but they are used to seeing cars in the Park with bundles tied all over the running boards. Now I move you that we go over to Yellowstone and go into the Park as far as the forks of the Gibbon and the Madison, and leave our stuff there for our camp, with Con to take charge of it and make camp. Then we can go on up the Gibbon and on to the Beaver Meadows, where the great black cliff is that is known through all this country as the Obsidian Cliff. I shall show you there, Jesse, the whole face of a mountain of this same black gla.s.s, as you call it. And that mountain, as sure as you live, was known by all the Indians for hundreds of miles around here. It was just like the great Red Pipestone quarries of Minnesota.

"Now you begin to see something about exploring and getting across country. You found that arrowhead on the hunting ground of the Shoshonis and the Bannacks. Those people hunted clear down across the lower end of what is now Montana, down the Red Rock River, the way we came by rail; and over the Raynolds Pa.s.s, where you boys were; and over the Targhee Pa.s.s, and up the Madison and the Gibbon, to this place where they get the heads for their arrows.

"How did they know? Who found it first? n.o.body can answer those questions. But one great truth about white explorations on this Continent you must know--there was not one great pa.s.s, not one great river, not one great natural scenic feature, which was not known to one or more Indian tribes centuries before the white men came. So after all, we as explorers are not so much. Fremont was not much of an explorer, much as you reverence him. Even Lewis and Clark had been preceded in all this country by the Indian girl and her people. And those people had been every place that we have been--and even as far as Yellowstone Park and into its interior as far as the Obsidian Cliff. There is no doubt or question about that, although it is quite true that obsidian was found in other volcanic regions of different parts of the West.

"Jesse, your arrowhead has been a long way from home! Are you going to take it back? Has it served its purpose in teaching you something about your own country?"

Jesse sat silent for a time, then, "Uncle d.i.c.k," said he, at last, "I am going to take my arrowhead back. When we get to that rock you tell about, I am going to put it down right at the foot, just the way it is, with other pieces like those the Indians took away."

"Good!" said Uncle d.i.c.k. "The little sentiment won't hurt you, anyhow. I suppose your arrowhead will remain there undiscovered for a thousand years. The tourists who come there now in their touring cars look at that black-faced rock about half a second and whiz by. They want to make the next lunch station."

"That's no lie," said Billy Williams. "Folks nowadays don't know how to travel."

They concluded their packing arrangements, rolling their bed rolls tight and storing them along the hood of the car and on the running boards, where Con had fixed up a little rack to carry the extra baggage. Saying good-by to their hospitable friends, the two parties now separated.

Without incident the journey of that day was completed as outlined by their leader, and that night they spread their tent in a public camping ground on the banks of the Madison River, in sight of twenty other tents besides their own.

"Nothing much here of interest," said Uncle d.i.c.k, "except yonder mountains. The Madison here is a beautiful stream, but fished to death.

That mountain is not much changed."

"What about it?" said Rob, curiously.

"That's National Park Mountain. We are camping now precisely where the Hayden, Doane, and Langford exploring party camped when they were going out in 1871 after finishing the first exploration of Yellowstone Park.

It was right here, at this camping place, that Cornelius Hedges, one of their number, proposed the establishment of the Yellowstone Park, so that all of this wonderland should be preserved forever."

"Well," said Rob, drawing a long breath, "we are getting into some history now around here!"

But they talked no more history at the time, for by now all were weary with the journey. As early as the next their camp fire was alight the following morning. Billy took Jesse up to Gibbon and across to the Obsidian Cliff, where he carried out his intention, and hid his obsidian arrowhead at the foot of the great rock. "There!" said he, "I'll bet, if anybody finds it, he'll wonder who made it!"

Soon they were on their way back to Yellowstone Station on the Bozeman road. Following it out, under Con O'Brien's steady driving, and asking a hundred questions of Billy en route, they finally swept down late in the evening into the beautiful valley of the Gallatin. Winding among the farms, they pulled up at last at Billy Williams's comfortable ranch house and soon were made at home.

"Here we are, fellows, east of the Three Forks of the Missouri," said Uncle d.i.c.k, when they had gotten out their maps for that evening's study. "At first, neither Lewis nor Clark followed the Gallatin at all.

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.