Emerson Hough

“ Uncle Dick steadied her with the oars. Jesse and John went ahead to trim ship. Rob gave a couple of turns to the flywheels of the two outboard motors and adjusted his feet to the special steering gear. The doubled motors began their busy sput-sput-sput! Like a thing of life the long craft, Adventurer, of America, turned into the current of the great Missouri, the echoes of the energetic little engines echoing far and wide. ”

“ And since that time that unknown America has grown to be one of the richest, if not the very richest, land in the world. And since that time, so much has the world changed, I have seen three flags flying at the same time over a city in France—those of France, of Great Britain, and of America, and all at peace with one another, though all at war together as allies in a cause they felt was just. ”

“ But Uncle Dick put a hand on Jesse’s shoulder as he saw tears in his eyes.
“It’s all right, son,” said he. “Don’t mind, but don’t forget. Good men come and go; it’s good deeds that live. Now, we’re by no means first at this spot, and it’s of no vast consequence now. We’ll even let our little flag flutter here alone, till the snows come, and the slides give it its evening gun.”
They turned back down the edge of the depression in the mountain top, and by deep dusk once more were at the horse camp, where Billy quickly went to work to find grass and wood. ”

“ To me, what’s ahead of us in the next two weeks was the most exciting part of the whole Lewis and Clark trip across.”
“But, Uncle Dick, you promised us some sport—fishing, I mean—trout and grayling.”
“Jesse,” said his uncle, “yes, I did. And being a good Indian myself, I’m going to keep my word to the paleface. We’ll take a week off with Billy’s flivver, if Billy’s mules connect with the flivver; and I’ll promise you, even now, hard hit as every trout water is all through here, the finest trout fishing—and the only grayling fishing—there is left in all America. How does that strike you?” ”

“ She’s riding fine, sir,” called Rob to Uncle Dick, over the noise of the two little propellers that kept the gunwales trembling. “I can head her square into the mid current and buck her through!”
Uncle Dick smiled and nodded. “It’s going to be all right! She rides like a duck. Spread that foresail, Frank, you and Jesse. We’ll do our six miles an hour, sure as shooting! Haul that foresail squarer, Jesse, so she won’t spill the wind. Now, Rob, keep her dead ahead.” ”

“ On hides, with a burnt stick—on the sand with a willow twig—in the ashes with a pipe stem—that’s how his maps grew. The Indians showed him; and he showed us.”
“I’ve often tried to tell,” said Rob, “which was the greater of those two men, Clark or Lewis.”
“You never will,” said his uncle. “They were the two greatest bunkies and buddies of all the world. Clark was the redhead; Lewis the dark and sober man. Clark was the engineer; Lewis the leader of men. Clark had the business man in him; Lewis something more—the vision, the faith of the soul as much as the self-reliance of the body. ”

“ How’d ‘Adventurer, of St. Louis,’ do?”
“Not so bad—not so bad. But to Lewis and Clark, St. Louis was only one point of their journey, important as it was.”
“I’ll tell you,” broke in Jesse, the youngest. “Call her ‘Adventurer, of America.’ You can paint it all on, if you use small letters for part, like the steamboats.”
“That’s the name!” said Rob. “Because that was a great adventure that Lewis and Clark were taking on; and it was all for America—then and now. Hard to live up to. But, you see, we’re only following.”
“What do you say, Uncle Dick?” asked John. ”

“ He rebuked Jesse for a “tenderfoot play” when they told him what had happened, much annoyed. “I’m responsible for you,” said he, “and while I’m willing you each should take all fair chances like a man, I’ll not have any needless risks. Learn to do things right, in the field, and then do them that way always. You know better than to mount a horse on the off side. That’s an Indian trick, but you’re not an Indian and this isn’t an Indian horse.”
Jesse was much crestfallen for being thrown and then scolded for it.
“Is he hurt any?” asked Uncle Dick of Rob, aside. ”

“ Rob was interested. “Too bad they’ve trapped off about all the grizzlies,” he said now. “I’ve tried a lot of kinds of sport, and of them all, I like grizzly hunting, quail shooting, and fly fishing for trout.”
“Not a bad selection! Well, the first is hard to get now. The grizzly is closer to extinction than the elk or the buffalo, for the buffalo breed in domestic life, and the grizzly—well, he hasn’t domesticated yet. He’s the one savage—he and the gray wolf—that would never civilize. And he’s gone.”
“But, Uncle Dick, those bears must have been a different species from grizzlies nowadays. ”

“ It’s a far shot that arrow will carry you, son. It will show you more of these Indian trails than even Lewis and Clark ever knew. Of course, they didn’t want to go south; they wanted north and west, because they knew the latitude and longitude of the mouth of the Columbia River. They knew that was northwest. They knew any water they got on, once over the Divide, would run into the Columbia, and they could see the Rockies, just on ahead to the west. As Billy has said, the Indian girl always was telling them that her people lived along in here. An obsidian arrow meant nothing to them. ”

“ The water’s as bright as glass, fast and clean, and not too deep to wade, with bends and willow coves on below—loveliest creeks you ever saw. Then, over across, is a creek where Jim Blair, a rancher, planted regular brook trout, years ago. They get to a half pound, three quarters, and take the fly like gentlemen. But all this country’s shot to pieces now—automobiles everywhere, and all sorts of men who kill the last fish they can. ”

“ At the heads of the bluffs where the current swept in they could be seen breaking almost continually, taking in some small floating insects. Inside of a few minutes each of the anglers was fast to a fine fish; and after that one strike after another followed fast and furious.
“You will have to be careful, son,” said Billy Williams to Jesse, who had raised three fine grayling and lost them all. “The mouth of a grayling is very tender. You can’t fight him as hard as you can a trout. Let him run. When he gets that big black fin up crossways of the stream he pulls like a ton. ”

“ In one year she sold more copper, gold, and silver from her deep mines than would have paid three times the whole price we paid for all the Louisiana that Lewis and Clark and you and I have been exploring! And that doesn’t touch the fur and the placer gold and the other mines and the cattle and wool and the farm products and the lumber. No man can measure what wealth has gone out from this country right under our noses here. ”

“ It was where the traveling traders got their goods, and where the bull outfits got their freight in 1863 for the placer mines of Montana and was the outfit place for Bozeman and all those early points. But that was after the fur trade was over.”
“That’s right,” said Uncle Dick. “First came the explorers; then the fur traders; then the miners; then the cow men; then the farmers. The end of the buffalo came in 1883—a million robes that year; and the next, none at all—the most terrible wild-life tragedy that ever was known. After that came the cattle and the sheep and the irrigation men.” ”

“ Well, he came in this way; and on ahead is where he started south, on a keen lope.
“Can we get across, south from here, into Henry’s Lake, Billy?” he asked.
“Easy as anything,” said Billy, “only the best way is to go by car from my place. Lots of folks go every day, from Butte, Helena, all these towns all along the valleys. Perfectly good road, and that’s faster than a pack train.”
“That’s what I have been promising my party!” said Uncle Dick. “But they shall not go fishing until they have got a complete notion of how all this country lies and how Lewis and Clark got through it.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ They been running a steamer up and down the Cañon above the Gate of the Mountains. You folks going to take that trip? Want to see the big dam at the head, at the old ferry?”
Uncle Dick turned in his saddle, to see what the boys would say. John made bold to answer.
“Well, I don’t know how the other fellows feel,” said he. “Of course, we know the Gate is a wonderful spot, where the two ranges pinch in; and the five miles above, they all say, is one of the greatest cañons in America—river deep, banks a thousand, fifteen hundred feet——”
“Sure fine!” nodded Billy, who had dropped back alongside. ”

“ At no part of the journey did Lewis and Clark have more exciting adventures than in precisely this country that we’ve got to skip, too. The buffalo fairly swarmed, and elk and antelope and bighorn sheep and blacktail deer were all around them all the time. It was a wonderful new world for them. ”

“ You surely have a good head, Billy, and you surely do know all this country of the Big Bend.”
“I ought to,” said Billy. “Well, then suppose we call that a go? We can fish on the spring creek, and live at Lil Culver’s place; you can drive right there with a car. Then the mail road runs right on east, past the foot of Jefferson Mountain and over the Red Rock Pass—Centennial Pass, some call it—to Henry’s Lake. All the fishing you want over there—the easiest in the world—but only one kind of trout—natives—and they taste muddy now, at low water. ”

“ Uncle Dick sighed. “Well, we’ll have to live on rolls and marmalade, and if Jesse’s appetite holds we’ll have to make a good many towns for supplies. More’s the pity, there’s a good town now about every ten miles or so—two dozen towns in the first two hundred and fifty miles.” ”

“ What do you say, Billy?”
“Well, sir,” answered the young ranchman, “we’ve got more help than Lewis and Clark had. We can use the telegraph, the telephone, the railway cars, and the motor car—besides [Pg 295] old Sleepy and Nigger and the riding horses. We can get about anywhere you like, in as much or little time as you like. If you leave it to me, I’d say, get a man at Dillon or Grayling—I’ve friends in both towns—to take the pack train back to my ranch on the Gallatin——”
“But we don’t want to say good-by to Sleepy!” broke in Jesse. “He’s a lot of fun.” ”

“ Life isn’t all adventure. Commerce follows on the trail of adventure. The fur traders forgot the romance, and hurried in up the Missouri, as soon as they could. And what fur they did get! No wonder Great Britain was sorry to meet Lewis and Clark up here!
“There were a lot of important fur posts that fed into the Missouri. The mouth of the James River was a good post. Fort Pierre—on the Teton, down below—was the best post on the river except Union, at the Yellowstone. ”

“ No old post is more famous. But that is not all.
“I have reference now, really, not to Fort Benton, but to the mouth of the Marias River, below here. Now, see how nearly, even to-day, the Marias resembles the Missouri River. Suppose you were captain, Jess, and you had no map and nothing to go by, and you came to these two rivers and didn’t have any idea on earth which was the one coming closest to the Columbia, and had no idea where either of them headed—now, what would you do?”
“Huh!” answered Jesse, with no hesitation at all. “I know what I’d have done.” ”

“ Passing trains whistled loudly and frequently. The shores became more populated.
“Two miles more and we’ll round to full view of Kansas City, young men,” said he. “We’ve crossed the whole and entire state of Missouri, three hundred and ninety miles—from one great city to another great one.
“St. Louis—Kansas City! Each in her day has been the Gate to the West. In 1847, Independence, over to the left, was going back, and even the new boat landing of Westport was within the year to be called Kansas City. ”

“ But they were bigger in California and all up the Pacific coast—trees and bears grew bigger there, for some reason. You boys have killed Kadiaks as big as this Gass grizzly. But you didn’t do it with a flintlock, small-bore, muzzle loader, fair stand-up fight. And your Kadiak bear would run when it saw you—so would a Lewis and Clark grizzly; only it would run toward you! Six men of them went out after one of them and wounded it, and it almost got the lot of them. Another time a grizzly chased a man down a bank into the river—bad actors, those grizzlies, in those times. ”

“ And you all have your match boxes?”
“Why, Uncle Dick,” expostulated Jesse, “it’s just over there, and we won’t need any fire there, for we’re coming right back.”
“But, Jesse, haven’t I told you always in new country to travel with matches and a hatchet, or at least a knife? No man can tell when he may get hurt or lost in mountain work, and then a fire is his first need. It’s all right to know how to make a fire by friction, Indian way, but you can’t always do that, and matches are surer and quicker. Never leave them.”
They set out, their leader now in advance, Billy bringing up the rear. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They say it is seventy miles or so around the shore line, I don’t know just how far. That place is full of big fish, and when you catch it just right, there is great sport there. I don’t call it sport to fish for trout under that big dam. They jump and jump there, day after day, until they wear themselves out. There ought to be a ladder in that dam, but there isn’t.”
“I suppose here is where the road comes down from Three Forks, over this Raynold’s Pass,” said John, with pencil in hand, ready to continue his own personal map of the country. ”

“ Those were the great days of adventure and romance and exploration. It was through the fur trade that we explored the Rocky Mountains. Can’t you see our men of the fur posts, paddling, rowing, sailing, tracking—getting up the Missouri? Great days, yes, Jesse—great days indeed.”
“I wish we had a picture of that old stockade!” sighed John.
“None exists. ”

“ By and by the Indians began to figure that they were more apt to get plenty of goods up the Missouri from the Americans than overland from the British traders. Do you see how that began to work out? Oh, our boys knew what they [Pg 132] were about, all right. And the result was that our fur trade swept up that river like an army with banners as soon as Lewis and Clark got back home. In a few years we had a hundred and forty fur trading posts on the Missouri and its upper tributaries, and from these our bold traders pushed out by pack train into every corner of the Rocky Mountains. ”

“ How’ll you go from there—boat?”
“I don’t believe so,” replied Uncle Dick. “I believe we’d have more freedom if we took a pack train above Great Falls, and cut across lots now and then, checking up in our Journal all the way.”
“That’s the stuff!” exclaimed John. “Horses!”
[Pg 140]
“Lewis and Clark used horses for some distance, at the crossing,” said Uncle Dick, “so I think we may dare do so. We want all the variety we can get, and all the fun we can get, too. What do you say, young gentlemen?”
“It sounds good to me,” said Rob. “I’d like to see the mountains pretty well. ”

“ It’s the finest black-land farm country in all the Rockies, and pretty as a picture. So’s the Beaverhead Valley, and all these others, pretty, too. Irrigation now, instead of sluices; and lots of the dry farmers from below go up to Butte and work in the mines in the wintertime—eight or ten thousand men in mines there all the time.”
“And all because we’d bought this country from Napoleon!” said John.
“I’m reading about that,” said Billy. “I’ve got lots of books and maps, and, living right in here, I’ve spent a lot of time studying out where Lewis and Clark went. ”