The Greatest Works of Emerson Hough – 19 Books in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Emerson Hough
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— which Lewis called Clark’s Fork, after Clark, just as Clark named his Salmon River tributary after Lewis — Lewis took ten men and headed across lots for the Great Falls and then for the head of the Marias River!
“Surely, they began to scatter. Clark had left twenty men, the Indian girl and her baby, and they had fifty horses. At this place here, where we are in camp, Clark split his party again, some going down in the boats, some on horseback, but all traveling free and happy. They got here July 10th, and three days later were at the Three Forks, both parties, only one hour apart! They certainly had good luck in getting together.
“On that same day, Sergeant Ordway took six boats and nine men and started down the Missouri to meet Lewis at the Great Falls, or the mouth of the Marias. They made it down all right, and that is all we can say, for no record exists of that run downstream.
“Now, get all this straight in your heads and see how they had scattered, in that wild, unknown country, part in boats, part on shore — the riskiest way to travel. All the sergeants are captains now. We have four different companies.
“Gass is at the Great Falls, where Lewis split his party. Ordway is on his way down the river from the Three Forks to the Falls. Clark is with the horses now, headed east for the Yellowstone — which not a soul in that party knew a thing about, except the Indian girl, who insisted they would come out on the Yellowstone. And on that river the Clark party divided once more, part going in boats and part on horseback!
“Now figure five parties out of thirty-one men. Look at your map, remembering that the two land parties were in country they had never seen before. Yet they plan to meet at the mouth of the Yellowstone, over twelve hundred miles from where we are sitting here! That’s traveling! That’s exploring! And their story of it all is as plain and simple and modest as though children had done it. There’s nothing like it in all the world.”
He ceased to speak. The little circle fell silent.
“Go on, go on, Uncle Dick!” urged Jess. “You’ve not allowed us to read ahead that far. You said you’d rather we wouldn’t. Tell us, now.”
“No. Fold up your maps and close your journals for a while, here at our last camp on the greatest trail a river ever laid.
“We’re going fishing now, fellows — to-morrow we start east, gaining two years on Lewis and Clark. When we get down near the Yellowstone and Great Falls country again, going east ourselves, we’ll just finish up the story of the map till we reach the Mandans — which is where we left our own good ship Adventurer.
“To-morrow we head south, the other way. ‘This story is to be continued in our next,’ as the story papers say.
“Good night. Keep all this in your heads. It is a great story of great men in a great valley, doing the first exploring of the greatest country in the world — the land that is drained by the Missouri and its streams!
“Good luck, old tops!” he added, as he rose and stepped to the edge of the circle of light, waving his hand to the Divide above them. He stood looking toward the west.
“Whom are you speaking to, Uncle Dick?” asked John, as he heard no answer.
“I was just speaking to my friends, Captain Meriwether Lewis and Captain William Clark. Didn’t you see them pass our camp just now?”
CHAPTER XXVI
THE JUMP-OFF CAMP
Two days later, on August 4th, the travelers had pushed on up the valley of the Missouri, to what was known as the Two Forks, between the towns of Grayling and Red Rock. They pitched their last camp, as nearly as they could determine, precisely where the Lewis and Clark party made their last encampment east of the Rockies, at what they called the Shoshoni Cove. This the boys called the Jump-off Camp, because this was where the expedition left its boats, and, ill fed and worn out, started on across the Divide for the beginning of their great journey into the Pacific Northwest.
Now they were under the very shoulders of the Rockies, and, so closely had they followed the narrative of the first exploration of the great river, and so closely had their own journey been identified with it, that now they were almost as eager and excited over the last stages of the journey to the summit as though it lay before them personally, new, unknown and untried. They hardly could wait to resume their following out of the last entangled skein of the great narrative.
“We’ve caught them at last, Uncle Dick!” exclaimed Jesse, spreading out his map on top of one of the kyacks in which Nigger had carried his load of kitchen stuff. “We’ve got almost a week the start of them here. This is August 4th, and it was August 10th when Lewis got here.”
“And by that time he’d been everywhere else!” said Rob. “Let’s figure him out — tying him up with that note the beaver carried off. That beaver certainly made a lot of trouble.
“Lewis left the note at the mouth of the Wisdom on August 4th. On August 5th Clark got there and went up the Wisdom. On August 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th, Shannon was lost up the Wisdom. On August 6th, Drewyer met Clark coming up the Wisdom River and turned him back; and Clark sent Field up the Wisdom after Shannon. Meantime Lewis had gone down to the junction at the Wisdom, not meeting the boats above the junction. He met Clark, coming back down the Wisdom with the boats. They then all went down to the mouth of the Wisdom and camped — that’s about a day’s march below where we camped, at the Beaverhead Rock.
“Then Lewis saw something had to be done. He told Clark to bring on the boats as fast as he could. He then made up a fast-marching party — himself, Drewyer, Shields, and McNeal — with packs of food and Indian trading stuff; he didn’t forget that part — and they four hit the trail in the high places only, still hunting for those Indians they’d been trying to find ever since they left the Great Falls. They were walkers, that bunch, for they left the Wisdom early August 9th, and they got here late on August 10th. That was going some!”
“Yes, but poor Clark didn’t get up here to where we are now until August 17th, a whole week later than Lewis. And by that time Lewis had come back down to this place where we are right now, and he was mighty glad to meet Clark. If he hadn’t, he’d have lost his Indians. You tell it now, Billy!” concluded Jesse, breathless.
“You mean, after Captain Lewis started west from here to cross the summit?”
“Yes.”
“All right. You can see why he went up this upper creek — it was the one that led straight to the top. The Red Rock River, as they now call the stream below what they call the Beaverhead River — it’s all one stream — bends off sharp south. The Horse Prairie Creek takes you straight up to Lemhi Pass, which ought to be called the Lewis Pass, but isn’t, though he was the first across it. Lewis was glad when he got to what they called the source, the next day after that.
“Now, he didn’t find any Indians right away. I allow he’d followed an Indian road toward that pass, but the tracks faded out. He knew he was due to hit Columbia waters now, beyond yon range, but what he wanted was Indians, so he kept on.
“Now all at once — I think it was August 11th, the same day he left camp here — about five miles up this creek, he saw an Indian, on horseback, two miles off! That was the first Indian they had seen since they left the Mandans the spring before. But Mr. Indian pulled his freight. That was when Lewis was ‘soarly chagrined’ with Shields, who had not stayed back till Lewis got his Indian gentled down some; he had him inside of one hundred yards at one time. He ‘abraided’ Shields for that; he says.
“But now, anyhow, they knew there was such a thing as an Indian, so they trailed this one, but they couldn’t catch him, and Lewis was scared he’d run all the other Indians back West. But on the next morning he ran into a big Indian road, that ran up toward the pass. There was a lowish mountain, running back about a half mile. The creek came out of the foot of that mountain —— ”