"Easy as anything," said Billy, "only the best way is to go by car from my place. Lots of folks go every day, from b.u.t.te, 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 d.i.c.k. "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."

"They hardly ever were together any more, in here," said Rob. "First one, then the other would scout out ahead. And they both were sick.

Clark was laid up after he met the boat party at the Forks, and Lewis took his turn on ahead. What good sports they were!"

"Yes," said John, "and what good sports the men were! They'd had to track and pole up here, all the way from the Falls, and at night they were worn out. Grub was getting scarce and they hadn't always enough to keep strong on. And above the Forks they had to wade waist deep in ice water, for hours, slipping on the stones, in their moccasins, and their teeth chattering. I'll bet they hated the sight of a beaver, for it was the beaver dams that kept all the sh.o.r.es full of willows and bayous, so they couldn't walk and track the boat, but had to take to the stream bed. Why, the beaver were so bad that Lewis got lost in the dams and had to lie out, one night! And he didn't know where his boats were, either."

"Well, that's what brought in the first wave of whites," said Uncle d.i.c.k--"the beaver. Then after they had got the beaver about all trapped out, say fifty years, in came the placer mines. Then came the deep lode mines--silver and copper. And then the farmers. Eh, Billy?"

"Sure," said Billy. "And then the tourists! Lots of folks that run dude ranches make more than they could raising hay. The Gallatin Valley, above me, is settled solid. 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 b.u.t.te 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. I tell it to you, they just naturally hot-footed it plumb all through here, one week after another. They did more travel, not knowing a thing about one foot of this country, and got over more of it, and knew more about it every day, than any party of men since then have done in five times the time they took."

"And didn't know where they were, or what would be next," a.s.sented John. "Those chaps were the real, really real thing!"

In this way, pa.s.sing through or near one town after another, traveling, talking, hurrying, too busy in camp to loaf an hour, our young explorers under their active leaders exceeded the daily average of William Clark to the point where, above the present power dam, the valley of the Missouri opens out above the Canon into that marvelous landscape which not even a century of occupancy has changed much, and which lay before them, wildly but pleasingly beautiful, now as it had for the first adventurers.

"And it's ours!" said Rob, jealously. He took off his hat as he stood gazing down over the splendid landscape from the eminence which at that time they had surmounted.

"Down near the power dam, somewhere," said Billy, "is where Clark must have struck into the river again from the trail he'd followed. He was about all in, and his feet in bad shape, but he would not give up. Then he lit on out ahead again, and was first at the Forks."

"Why, you've read the _Journal_, too!" said John, and Billy nodded, pleasantly.

"Why, yes, I think every man who lives in Montana ought to know it by heart. Yes, or in America. I'd rather puzzle it all out, up in here, than read anything else that we get in by mail.

"My dad was all over here in early days. Many a tale he told of the placers and the road agents--yes, and of the Vigilantes, too, that cleaned out the road agents and made it safe in here, to travel or live."

"Was your father a Vigilante, sir?" asked Jesse.

"Well now, son," grinned Billy, "since you ask me, I more'n half believe he was! But you couldn't get any of those old-time law-and-order men to _admit_ they'd ever been Vigilantes. They kept it mighty secret. Of course, when the courts got in, they disbanded. But they'd busted up the old Henry Plummer's gang and hung about twenty of the road agents, by that time. They was some active--both sides."

At last the party, after a week of steady horse work, pitched their little camp about mid-afternoon at the crest of a little promontory from which they commanded a marvelous view of the great valley of the Three Forks. On either hand lay a beautiful river, the Gallatin at their feet, a little town not far, the Jefferson but a little way.

"I know where this is!" exclaimed John. "I know----"

"Not a word, John!" commanded Uncle d.i.c.k. "Enjoy yourselves now, in looking at this valley. After we've taken care of the horses and made camp, I'll see how much you know."

CHAPTER XXIII

SUNSET ON THE OLD RANGE

They completed their camp on the high point which they had reached.

Billy brought in n.i.g.g.e.r's panniers full of wood for the cooking fire, and they had water in the desert bag which always was part of their camp equipment, so they needed not seek a more convenient spot; nor would they have exchanged this for any other.

"We've seen many a view, fellows," said John, as the three stood near the edge of the little promontory almost in the village, "but of them all, in any country, all up this river, and all the way north to Kadiak Island, or to the Arctic Circle--nothing that touches this."

They had hurriedly finished their evening meal. Their robes were spread on the ground, their guns and rod cases lay at the saddles or against the panniers. Their maps, journals, and books lay on the robes before them. But they all turned to take in the beauties of the summer sunset now unfolding its vast screen of vivid coloring in the West. Thence they looked, first up one valley and then another, not so much changed, in spite of the occasional fields.

"Of course," said John, after a time, "we know this spot, and know why you and Mr. Billy brought us here. It's the Fort Rock of Meriwether Lewis--it couldn't be anything else!"

Uncle d.i.c.k smiled and nodded.

"That's what she is," nodded Billy. "Right here's where Cap'n Lewis stood and where he said was a good place for a fort--so high, you see, so no Indians could jump them easy. But they never did build the first fur fort here; that was higher up, on the Jefferson, little ways.

"Up yonder's the Gallatin--we're up her valley a little way. My ranch is up in ten miles. Yonder used to be quite a little town like, right down below us. Yon's the railroad, heading for the divide, where we came over from p.r.i.c.kly Pear. Other way, upstream, is the railroad to b.u.t.te. Yon way lies the Madison; she heads off southeast, for Yellowstone Park. And yon's the main Jefferson; and the Madison joins her just a little way up. And you've seen the Gallatin come in--the swiftest of the three.

"Now what would you do, if you was Lewis?" he added. "And which way would you head if you wanted to find the head of the true Missouri and get on across the Rockies?

"You see, we're in a big pocket of the Rockies here--the great Continental Divide sweeps away down south in a big curve here--made just so these three rivers and their hundred creeks could fan out in here.

She's plumb handsome even now, and she was plumb wild then. What would you do? Which river would you take?"

"I'd scout her out," said John.

"They did. You look in your book and you'll find that, while Lewis was in here Clark was nigh about forty miles above here; he plumb wore his men out, twenty-five miles the first day above the Forks, twelve miles the next. That was up the Jefferson, you see; they picked it for the real Missouri, you see, because it was fuller and quieter.

"They didn't waste any time, either of them, on the Gallatin. That left the Madison. So Clark comes back down the Jefferson and they forded her, away above the Forks--no horses, on foot, you see--and near drowned that trifling fellow Chaboneau, the Indian girl's husband.

"Then Clark--he wasn't never afraid of getting lost or getting drowned, and he never did get lost once--he strikes off across the ridges, southeast, heading straight for the Madison, just him and his men, and I'll bet they was good and tired by now, for they'd walked all the way from Great Falls, hunting Indians, and hadn't found one yet, only plenty tracks.

"So he finds the Madison all right, and comes down her to the Forks. And there--July 27th, wasn't it, the _Journal_ says?--he finds Lewis and all eight of the canoes and all of the folks, in camp a mile above the Forks, just as easy and as natural as if they hadn't ever known anything except just this country here. Of course, they had met almost every day, but not for two days now.

"By that time they had their camp exactly on the spot where that Indian girl had been captured by the Minnetarees six or eight years earlier.

She'd had a long walk, both ways! But she was glad to get back home!

Nary Indian, though now it was getting time for all the Divide Indians to head down the river, over the two trails, to the Falls, where the buffalo were."

"That's a story, Billy!" said Jesse. Billy stopped, abashed, forgetting how enthusiasm had carried him on.

"Go ahead," said Uncle d.i.c.k.

"Well, you see, I read all about it all, and I get all het up, even now," said Billy; "me raised right in here, and all."

"No apologies, Billy. Go on."

"Well then, by now Clark, he was right nigh all in. His feet was full of thorns and he had a boil on his ankle, and he'd got a fever from drinking cold water when he was hot--or that's how he figured it.

Nothing had stopped him till now. But now he comes in and throws down on a robe, and he says, 'Partner, I'm all in. I haven't found a Indian. But I allow that's the branch to follow.'

"He points up the Jefferson. Maybe the Indian girl said so, too, but I think they'd have taken the Jefferson, anyhow. They all agreed on that.

"Now I've heard that the Indian girl kept pointing south and saying that over that divide--that would be over the Raynolds Pa.s.s--was water that led to the ocean. I don't know where they get that. Some say the Indian girl went up the Madison with Clark. She didn't; she was with Lewis at the boats all the time. Some say that Clark got as far south as the canon of the Madison, northwest of the Yellowstone Park. He didn't and couldn't. Even if he did and was alone, that wouldn't have led him over Raynolds Pa.s.s. That's a hundred miles, pretty near.

"I wonder what would have happened to them people, now, if they all had picked the wrong branch and gone up the Madison? If they'd got on Henry's Lake, which is the head of one arm of the Snake, and had got started on the Snake waters--good night! We'd never have heard of them again.