The Greatest Works of Emerson Hough – 19 Books in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Emerson Hough
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of Montana bar.”
“‘From this bar seven panfuls of clean gold were taken out at one “clean-up,” that weighed 700 pounds and were worth $114,800. A million and a half dollars in gold was hauled by wagon from Diamond City to Fort Benton at one time for shipment to the East. This gulch is reputed to have produced $10,000,000, from 1864 to 1868, and it is still being sluiced.
“‘Some very large gold nuggets were found in this region. Many were worth from $100 to $600 or $700. Several were worth from $1,500 to $1,800; one, of pure gold, was worth $2,100 and two or three exceeded $3,000 in value.’”
The boys sat silent, hardly able to understand what they had heard. Billy Williams nodded his head gravely.
“It’s all true,” said he. “When I was a boy I heard my father tell of it. He was in on the Confederate Creek strike. He helped sluice five thousand dollars in one day, and they didn’t half work. He said it was just laying there plumb yellow. They thought it would last always; but it didn’t.
“You see, I was born out here. My dad was rich in the ’sixties, then he went broke, like everybody. When he got old he married and settled. He took to ranching and hunting, and I’ve taken to ranching. Times are quieter now. They weren’t always quiet, along this little old creek, believe me!”
“Gee!” said Jesse, rubbing his head, which had a bump on it, “I’d like to pan some gold!”
“I expect you could,” said Billy. “Might get the color, even now, on the Jefferson bars, I don’t know. Of course, they’ve learned how to work the low-grade dirt now — cyanide and dredges and all. It’s a business now!
“Yes, and when we get along a day or so farther, beyond the Forks, I’ll locate a few more spots that got to be famous for reasons that Lewis and Clark never dreamed. From the head of the Cañon up the beaver swarmed; this was the best beaver water in America, and known as such. That was the wealth those boatmen understood. No wonder Lewis thought it would be a good place for a fort. And the traders did build a fur post at the Forks, in 1808. And the Blackfeet came. And they killed poor old Drewyer and a lot of others of the fur traders. Oh, this was the dark and bloody Blackfeet ground, all right.”
“Tell us about it, Uncle Dick!” Jesse was eager.
“Wait, son. We are still on foot with Clark, you know, and we don’t know where the boats are, and we haven’t found any Shoshonis and we’ve not too much to eat. Wait a day or so. We’ve only done about twenty-five miles, and that’s a big day for the packs — not a much faster rate than Clark was marching. He nearly wore out himself and his men, on that march. I fancy not even York, his cheerful colored man, came in that night as frisky as old Sleepy.”
“That’s right,” said John. “It was just as Mr. Williams said — he freshened up and came in playing, kicked up his heels when his load was off, and bit me on the arm and kicked old Nigger. And there he is now, with another thistle saved up!”
CHAPTER XXII
AT THE THREE FORKS
Something of the feverish haste which had driven Capt. William Clark, when, weary and sore-footed, he and his little party has crowded on up along the great bend of the Missouri and into the vast southerly dip of the Continental Divide, now animated the members of the little pack train, which followed as nearly as they could tell the “old Indian road” which Clark had followed. They felt that they at least must equal his average daily distance of twenty-one miles.
Keeping back from the towns all they could, though often in sight or hearing of the railway, they passed above the Gate of the Mountains and the Bear Tooth Rock, and skirted the flanks of the Belt range, which forked out on each side of the lower end of that great valley in which Nature for so long had concealed her secrets of the great and mysterious river.
A feeling almost of awe came over them all as they endeavored to check up their own advance with the records of these others who had been the first white men to enter that marvelous land which ought to be called the Heart of America, hidden as it is, having countless arteries and veins, and pulsing as it is even now with mysterious and unfailing power — the most fascinating spot in all America.
“Here they passed!” Uncle Dick would say. “Sometimes Clark met them, or hung up a deer on the bank for them. Always in the boats, or on shore when she was walking, the Indian girl would say that soon they would come to the Three Rivers, where years ago she had been captured by the Minnetarees, from the far-off Mandan country. ‘Bimeby, my people!’ I suppose she said. But for weeks they did not find her people.”
“Was Clark on his ‘Indian road’ all the time?” asked Rob.
“He must have been a good deal of the time, or rather on two branches of it. That’s natural. You see, this was on the road to the Great Falls, and the Shoshonis, Flatheads, and Nez Percés all went over there each summer to get meat. The Flatheads and Nez Percés took the cut-off from east of Missoula, direct to the Falls — the same way that Lewis went when they went east. They came from the salmon country west of the Rockies. So did the Shoshonis, part of the time, but their usual trail to the buffalo was along the Missouri and this big bend. Their real home was around the heads of the river, where they had been driven back in.
“But they were bow-and-arrow people, while the Blackfeet had guns that they got of the traders, far north and east. Two ways the Blackfeet could get horses — over the Kootenai Trail, where Glacier Park is, or down in here, where the Shoshonis lived; for the Shoshonis also had horses — they got them west of the Rockies. So this road was partly war road and partly hunting road. I don’t doubt it was rather plain at that time.
“When the first fur traders of the Rocky Mountain Company came in here, right after Lewis and Clark came back and told their beaver stories, the country was known, you might say. It was at the Three Forks that Colter and Potts, two of the Lewis and Clark men, were attacked by the Blackfeet, and Potts killed and Colter forced to run naked, six miles over the stones and cactus — till at last he killed his nearest pursuer with his own spear, and hid under a raft of driftwood in the Jefferson River.
“And when the fur men came up and built their fort, they had the Lewis and Clark hunter Drewyer to guide them at first. But the Blackfeet made bitter war on them. They killed Drewyer, as I told you, not far ahead of us now, at the Forks. And they drove out Andrew Henry, the post trader. He just naturally quit and fled south, over into the Henry’s Lake country, in Idaho, and kept on down the Snake there, till he built his famous fort in there, so long known as Fort Henry. 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.”
“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 shores full of willows and bayous, so they couldn’t