The Greatest Works of Emerson Hough – 19 Books in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Emerson Hough
Читать онлайн книгу.
definite and permanent channel.
Without any comment, each one of the party, almost unconsciously, removed his hat. A feeling almost of awe fell upon them as they stood in that wild, remote, silent and sheltered spot, unknown and unnoted of the busy world, which now they knew was the very head spring of the greatest waterway of all the world.
“’Shun!” barked Uncle Dick. The three boys fell into line, heels together, in the position of the soldier, Billy following suit. Uncle Dick drew from his pocket a tiny, folded flag, no more than four or five inches in its longest dimension, and pinned it on a twig which he placed upright at the side of the spring.
“Colors!” Sharply Uncle Dick’s hand swept to his eyes, in the army salute. And the hand of every one of the others followed. Then, with swung hat, Rob led them with the Scouts’ cheer.
“Let’s look for the Culver plate now!” exclaimed Jesse, and scrambled on hands and knees. Indeed, he did unearth the rusted fragments of what might have been the original record plate, but small trace now remained of any inscription. With some pride he next drew out from his shirt front a plate which he himself had concealed thus long, brought for a purpose of like sort to that of the rusted remnant they now had found. But his Uncle Dick gently restrained him.
“No, better not, son,” said he. “You and I have done very little. We have discovered nothing at all, except one Indian arrowhead a hundred miles north of here. To leave our names here now would only be egotism, and that’s not what we want to show. Reverence is what we want to show, for this place that was here before Thomas Jefferson was born, and will be here unchanged after the last President of the United States shall have passed on.
“Let old Mount Jefferson have his own secret still for his own — see how he wipes out all traces of human beings, steadily and surely!
“In all their great journey across, Meriwether Lewis did not once write his name on rock or tree. Will Clark wrote his twice — once on Pompey’s Pillar, on the Yellowstone, and once on the rock far down in Nebraska, as we noted when we passed near that place. But the simplicity, the modesty of those two, sinking everything in their great duty to their country — it’s those things, my boys, which make their Journal the model of its kind and class, and their journey the greatest of its kind in all the history of the world.
“Now hats off to Captain Meriwether Lewis and Captain William Clark of the army! Had they come where we are now, they would not have reached the Columbia. In courage, good sense, and modesty, the first and best.”
They did salute, once more and in silence. 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. All bore a hand. They got up all the dry wood they could find, cut stakes for a back log pile of green logs, spread the half of a quilt back of their slim bed, and so prepared to pass a night which they found very long and cold. Their supper now was cooked, and before the small but efficient fire they now could complete the labors of their own day — each boy with his notes, and John with the map which he always brought up each day at least in sketch outline.
“I don’t know just how many people ever have been in here,” said Billy, after a time. “Not so very many, sure, for nearly all try to get up the cañon. I heard that a man and his wife once climbed up the cañon, but I doubt that. There’s Bill Bowers, from the head of Henry’s Lake, he’s been up to the top, but I don’t know just how far — he said you couldn’t follow the cañon all the way. I don’t doubt that prospectors and hunters have been across here, and the Bannacks hunted these mountains for sheep, many a year. Used to be great bighorn country, and of course, if this country never was known by anybody, the bighorns would still be here. There’s stories that there’s a few in back, but I don’t believe it. You can ride up the south slope of Sawtelle Mountain, in the timber, almost to the top, and almost this high. I guess she’s been traveled over, all right, by now. Only, they couldn’t carry off the old river. If they could, I guess they’d have done that, too.”
That night the stars came out astonishingly brilliant and large. The silence of the great hills was unbroken even by a coyote’s howl. To them all, half dozing by their little fire, it did indeed seem they had found their ultimate wilderness, after all.
The chill of morning still was over all the high country when they got astir and began to care for the horses on their picket ropes and to finish the cooking of their remaining food. Then, each now leading his horse, they began to thread their way downhill. Over country where now they had established the general courses, it was easier for such good mountain travelers to pick out a feasible way down. They crossed the cañon at about the same place, but swung off more to the right, and early in the morning were descending a timbered slope which brought them to the edge of the Alaska Basin and the Red Rock road. They now were on perfect footing and not far from the Culver camp, so they took plenty of time.
“The name ‘Culver Cañon’ did not seem to stick,” said Billy, as they marked the gorge where the river debouched, far to their right, now. “I don’t know what the surveyors call it — they never have done much over in here but guess at things mostly — but the name ‘Hell Roaring Cañon’ is the one that I’ve always heard used for it. It’s not much known even now. A few people call it the ‘real head of the Missouri,’ but nobody in here seems to know much about its history, or to care much about it. They all just say it’s a mighty rough cañon, up in. Somehow, too, the place has a bad name for storms. I’ve heard a rancher say, over east of the pass, on Henry’s Lake, that in the winter it got black over in here on Jefferson, and he couldn’t sleep at night, sometimes, because of the noise of the storms over in these cañons. Oh, I reckon she’s wild, all right.
“Now, below the mouth, you’ll see all the names are off. Hell Roaring breaks into four channels just at the mouth, over the wash. Fact is, there’s seven channels across the valley, in all, but four creeks are permanent, and they wander all out yonder, clean across the valley, but come together below, above the upper lake; and that’s the head of the Red Rock, which ought to be called the Missouri by rights.
“And you ought to have seen the grayling once, in all these branches!” he added. “No finer fishing ever was in the world. 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.”
“But have they got them all?” asked Rob. “It would be easy planting and keeping up such waters as these.”
“Sure it would. Well, maybe some day folks’ll learn that the old times in their country are gone. We act like they wasn’t, but that’s because we’ve got no sense — don’t know our history.
“Now,” he added, as they forded one bright, merry stream that crossed their way, “you all ride down the road to where the bridge is — that’s the main stream again, and she’s pretty big — regular river, all right. Wait for me there at the bridge. I’ll see if I can pick out a fish or so. I see a dry quaking asp lying here that some fellow has left, and I’ll just try it myself. You know, get a quaking-asp pole that’s dry and hasn’t been dead too long, it’s the lightest and springiest natural fishing rod that grows. The tip is strong enough, if it hasn’t rotted, and she handles almost as good as a boughten rod. Now Rob, you lead my horse on down, and I’ll try it along the willows with a ‘hopper.’”
“Oh, let me go along, too!” exclaimed Jesse. “Lead my horse, John?”