Down the Yellowstone

by Lewis R. Freeman

"Came in on the brake-beams, going out on shank's mare," I chirruped blithely, and forthwith (to the very evident perturbation of the taxi-driver) started as if off for Miles City on foot. Some will say my reasoning was quixotic, but this was the way of it at any rate: I cared no whit if hardware-drummer Allstein believed I was a hobo, just as long as he continued to believe I was an ex-sparring partner of Jack Dempsey. And what he must be prevented from knowing at any cost was that, far from being even the hammiest of ham-and-sparring partners, I was what the Gazette cub had characterized as a "daring novelist seeking material for new book by running rapids of Yellowstone."

But the fat was already in the fire. Allstein halted my Miles City Marathon with a gesture half weary, half contemptuous. "That taxi looks about as much like you're hoboing as did them three dishes of strawberries at the Northern this morning," he growled, glowering. I caved at once and meekly asked him to get in and come down to see my little steel boat. Lightest outfit that ever went down river.... Boat and all my stuff weighed less than I did myself....

I was in the taxi by that time. Allstein had continued to register "Betrayed! Betrayed!" but had not moved to cut off my retreat. That was something to be thankful for anyhow. Not knowing what else to say, I remarked to the driver that it must be getting along toward boat-time. And so away we went. Allstein's reproachful gaze bored into my back until we swung out of eye-range into the Custer Trail. I know that I shall be reminded of him every time I see a ruined maiden in the movies or at Drury Lane to the end of my days.

Billings is a fine modern city, which makes me regret all the more that most of my daylight impressions of it had to be gained by peeking under a taxicab curtain. It is by long odds the largest town on the Yellowstone; in fact, I saw no city comparable with it for size and vigour until at Sioux City I came to the first of the packing-house metropolises of the Missouri. Billings owed its first prosperity to cattle and sheep and its fine strategic situation for distribution. Pastoral industries cut less of a figure today, but the town has continued to gain ground as the principal distributing centre for western Montana. That, with agricultural and power development, has brought mills and factories, and the town now ranks high among the manufacturing centres of the North-west. I shall live in hopes of going back some-day and seeing Billings properly—as a visiting Chamber of Commerce booster or a Rotary excursionist, or something equally sans reproche.

The point where the Northern Pacific Railway bridge crosses the Yellowstone below Billings is of considerable interest historically. It was here that Clark ferried Sergeant Pryor and his remaining pack animals across the river, preliminary to the overland journey that was to be attempted with the animals to the Mandan Villages. Here, also, is the point that is popularly credited with being the high-water mark of steamboat navigation on the Yellowstone. On June 6, 1875, Captain Grant Marsh in the Josephine, conducting a rough survey of the river under the direction of General J. W. Forsyth, reached a point which he estimated to be forty-six miles above Pompey's Pillar, 250 miles above Powder River and 483 miles above the mouth of the Yellowstone. Major Joseph Mills Hanson, in his "Conquest of the Missouri," stirringly describes the climax of this remarkable voyage.

After leaving Pompey's Pillar "the great river, though apparently undiminished in volume, grew more and more swift, constantly breaking into rapids through which it was necessary to warp and spar the boat, while numberless small islands split the channel into chutes, no one of which was large enough for easy navigation. At times it seemed that a smooth stretch of water had been reached, ... but invariably just beyond another rapid would be encountered.... Before nightfall a tremendous rapid was encountered, and though, after a hard struggle, it was successfully passed, so forbidding was its aspect and so savage the resistance it offered, that it was appreciatively named 'Hell Roaring Rapids.' At the head of it the boat lay up for the night, with a line stretched to the bank ahead to help her forward in the morning. But when dawn came, General Forsyth, seeing the nature of the river in front, ordered out a reconnoitring party who marched up the bank for several miles examining the channel. On their return they reported the whole river ahead so broken up by islands and with so powerful a current that it could not be navigated without constant resort to warping and sparring.... General Forsyth and Captain Marsh held a consultation and decided that no adequate reward for the labour involved could be gained by going further. So, at two o'clock p. m. on June 7th, the boat was turned about and started on her return.... Before leaving this highest point attained, Captain Marsh blazed the trunk of a gigantic cottonwood to which the Josephine was tied, and carved thereon the name of the boat and the date. It is exceedingly improbable that a steam vessel will ever again come within sight of that spot or be entitled to place her name beneath the Josephine's on that ancient tree trunk, almost under the shadow of the Rocky Mountains."

THE COUNTY BRIDGE OVER THE YELLOWSTONE

The Josephine's farthest west on the Yellowstone stands as the record for steamers by many miles, but what wouldn't I have given to have found that big cottonwood and tied up there myself! No one along the river could tell me anything about it, and there is little doubt that, like so many thousands of its less distinguished brethren, it has been swallowed up by the spring floods. Neither above nor below the bridge for many miles, however, could I locate a riffle sufficiently savage to fit Captain Marsh's description of "Hell Roaring Rapids." It has occurred to me as just possible that such a rapid was wiped out when the power dam was built, the comparatively short distance the water is backed up at that point suggesting that the original fall was very considerable. Again, it is possible that to Captain Marsh, after his many years in the comparatively smooth waters of the Missouri, such riffles as still go slap-banging down along the bluffs opposite Billings would appear a lot rougher than they would to one just down from the almost continuously white and rock-torn rapids of the upper river.

At any event it stirred my imagination mightily to locate the Josephine's turning point even approximately. From now on I was going to have a fellow pilot for Captain Clark. Captain Grant Marsh was henceforth at my call at any point I needed him between Billings and St. Louis. The stout frame of that splendid old river Viking had been tucked under the sod down Bismarck-way for a number of years, but I knew his spirit still took its wonted tricks at the wheel. Captain William Clark and Captain Grant Marsh! Could you beat that pair if it came to standing watch-and-watch down the Yellowstone and Missouri? And there were others waiting just round the bend. At the Big Horn I could sign on Manual Lisa if I wanted him; or John Colter, who discovered the Yellowstone Park while flying from the Blackfeet. But Colter was not truthful, which disqualified him for pilotage. I should have to ship him simply as a congenial spirit—one of my own kind.

Returning to my boat, I found that the little daughters of the pumping-station man had roofed it over like a Venetian gondola and moved in with all their worldly goods. They confronted me with the clean-cut alternatives of coming to live with them right there or taking them with me down the river. Fortunately their parents intervened on my side. With the aid of those two kindly and tactful diplomats—and a lot of milk chocolate and dried apricots—I finally contrived an ejection. The operation delayed me till after four o'clock, though, so there was no hope of making Pompey's Pillar that night.