“What’s below, Kit?” queried the lieutenant, quickly. “I hear strange stories of fine valleys at the bottoms of canyons entered by a secret trail, and of wonderful beaver grounds and ancient towns, shut in by walls a mile high.”
“Wall,” drawled Kit, “when I went out to Californy in Twenty-nine, with Captain Young, we struck the Colorado at a place whar the river’d sunk down into a canyon full a mile deep an’ three mile acrost. We didn’t get down into it, but I’m ready to believe that ’most anything could be found at the bottom. They call it the Grand Canyon, now. Injuns say thar’s a heap more o’ the same kind, up above, for three hundred mile.”
“But did you ever hear anything about the Buenaventura River, flowing west instead of south, across the Great Basin and emptying into the Pacific Ocean?”
“Heard about it, but never saw it,” stated Kit. “Never knew a trapper who did see it. O’ course, Injuns give out all sort o’ tales, an’ you can’t believe ’em.”
“The early Spanish claimed such a river, did they not—draining a lake?” put in Mr. Preuss. “It is marked down on maps that I have seen.”
“Yes,” replied the lieutenant. “Now, if there is such a river, as the Buenaventura, connecting this central Great Basin with the Pacific Ocean of California, what a boon will it be! Boats could ascend the Arkansas, or the Platte, or the Missouri River, be carried across the mountains, and launching into the Buenaventura continue on to the coast!”
“A water-way across the continent,” puffed Mr. Preuss. “That is good!”
“Bien, bien!” cried Basil.
From the Green the road crossed among hills, making westward for the Bear. Soon the Snake woman, with her two children and her six pack-horses, left to seek relatives at the trading post of old Jim Bridger, only a few miles away. And the next day Kit Carson spurred ahead, for Fort Hall, to engage provisions there, in case that the Thomas Fitzpatrick party, which should be somewhere on the way from Fort Laramie, might be running short or have met with misfortune.