The Greatest Works of Emerson Hough – 19 Books in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Emerson Hough
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replied the other. “Wait until we get up there. We still have a little work to do in studying out the return trip of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in the summer of 1806.”
That night they had what John called a map party on the table in the friendly ranchman’s home. He and the two young Westerners joined them all in examining the maps and the great river from St. Louis.
“That’s something of a journey, I should say!” commented the ranchman. “I’ll warrant you have learned a good many things you did not know before. Some things in here I didn’t know before, myself.”
“It’s much pleasanter,” said Rob, “to follow out a country on the ground than it is to do it on the map. Not all maps are correct — except John’s, here! But no matter how good a map is, it never means anything to you until you have followed it out on the ground. Just look here, for instance, at the great crooked sweep of the Continental Divide. Yet here we have crossed three passes over the Continental Divide within the last three days — Red Rock, Raynolds, and Targhee — and the Targhee divides the Madison, which is Atlantic water, from Henry’s Lake, which is Pacific water.”
“Yes,” nodded Uncle Dick. “There are not many more interesting countries, geographically speaking, than this right where we are, at the head of the great river. Lewis and Clark crossed the Rocky Mountain Divide seven times, at six different places — up North there. They crossed the Lemhi Pass, both of them. Then they crossed the Divide twice more into the Bitter Roots, then crossed it again on the Lolo Trail. Then they came back over that when they went East, and Lewis crossed the pass over to the north, alone, and that ought to be called his pass. And Clark came down to the Gallatin and crossed that pass alone to the Yellowstone waters. Yet their names are on almost none of the great passes and great rivers which they found. Soon they will have passed.”
One more day of beautiful sport on the crystal stream that ran through the beautiful valley, and the pleasant party of new-made friends met around the camp fire for the last time.
“I have got to get back for my haying,” said Chet, who had proved himself a fine angler as well as a good companion.
“The same for me,” added the young rancher from the head of the lake. So it was agreed that on the next morning they should separate.
CHAPTER XXXII
AT BILLY’S RANCH
The blue smoke of their last camp fire on the South Fork rose almost straight in the still air of a clear summer day as their party sat around their last breakfast. Although not actually at the end of their journey, they felt that now they were heading away from these interesting scenes, so that a sort of sadness fell upon them.
“Cheer up, fellows!” said Billy Williams. “You are not out of scenery, nor out of sport yet, by any means, if you want to stop for sport. Besides, there is one other thing we haven’t finished yet,” he added turning to Uncle Dick.
“Feel in your right-hand waistcoat pocket, Jesse,” said the latter.
Jesse did so with a smile and produced the black, glassy-looking arrowhead which he had found at the Beaverhead Rock over to the northward, many days before.
“We are a few miles west of the Yellowstone Park here,” said Uncle Dick. “We will have quite a party in our car with all the luggage, but they are used to seeing cars in the Park with bundles tied all over the running boards. Now I move you that we go over to Yellowstone and go into the Park as far as the forks of the Gibbon and the Madison, and leave our stuff there for our camp, with Con to take charge of it and make camp. Then we can go on up the Gibbon and on to the Beaver Meadows, where the great black cliff is that is known through all this country as the Obsidian Cliff. I shall show you there, Jesse, the whole face of a mountain of this same black glass, as you call it. And that mountain, as sure as you live, was known by all the Indians for hundreds of miles around here. It was just like the great Red Pipestone quarries of Minnesota.
“Now you begin to see something about exploring and getting across country. You found that arrowhead on the hunting ground of the Shoshonis and the Bannacks. Those people hunted clear down across the lower end of what is now Montana, down the Red Rock River, the way we came by rail; and over the Raynolds Pass, where you boys were; and over the Targhee Pass, and up the Madison and the Gibbon, to this place where they get the heads for their arrows.
“How did they know? Who found it first? Nobody can answer those questions. But one great truth about white explorations on this Continent you must know — there was not one great pass, not one great river, not one great natural scenic feature, which was not known to one or more Indian tribes centuries before the white men came. So after all, we as explorers are not so much. Frémont was not much of an explorer, much as you reverence him. Even Lewis and Clark had been preceded in all this country by the Indian girl and her people. And those people had been every place that we have been — and even as far as Yellowstone Park and into its interior as far as the Obsidian Cliff. There is no doubt or question about that, although it is quite true that obsidian was found in other volcanic regions of different parts of the West.
“Jesse, your arrowhead has been a long way from home! Are you going to take it back? Has it served its purpose in teaching you something about your own country?”
Jesse sat silent for a time, then, “Uncle Dick,” said he, at last, “I am going to take my arrowhead back. When we get to that rock you tell about, I am going to put it down right at the foot, just the way it is, with other pieces like those the Indians took away.”
“Good!” said Uncle Dick. “The little sentiment won’t hurt you, anyhow. I suppose your arrowhead will remain there undiscovered for a thousand years. The tourists who come there now in their touring cars look at that black-faced rock about half a second and whiz by. They want to make the next lunch station.”
“That’s no lie,” said Billy Williams. “Folks nowadays don’t know how to travel.”
They concluded their packing arrangements, rolling their bed rolls tight and storing them along the hood of the car and on the running boards, where Con had fixed up a little rack to carry the extra baggage. Saying good-by to their hospitable friends, the two parties now separated.
Without incident the journey of that day was completed as outlined by their leader, and that night they spread their tent in a public camping ground on the banks of the Madison River, in sight of twenty other tents besides their own.
“Nothing much here of interest,” said Uncle Dick, “except yonder mountains. The Madison here is a beautiful stream, but fished to death. That mountain is not much changed.”
“What about it?” said Rob, curiously.
“That’s National Park Mountain. We are camping now precisely where the Hayden, Doane, and Langford exploring party camped when they were going out in 1871 after finishing the first exploration of Yellowstone Park. It was right here, at this camping place, that Cornelius Hedges, one of their number, proposed the establishment of the Yellowstone Park, so that all of this wonderland should be preserved forever.”
“Well,” said Rob, drawing a long breath, “we are getting into some history now around here!”
But they talked no more history at the time, for by now all were weary with the journey. As early as the next their camp fire was alight the following morning. Billy took Jesse up to Gibbon and across to the Obsidian Cliff, where he carried out his intention, and hid his obsidian arrowhead at the foot of the great rock. “There!” said he, “I’ll bet, if anybody finds it, he’ll wonder who made it!”
Soon they were on their way back to Yellowstone Station on the Bozeman road. Following it out, under Con O’Brien’s steady driving, and asking a hundred questions of Billy en route, they finally swept down late in the evening into the beautiful valley of the Gallatin. Winding among the farms, they pulled up at last at Billy