One crater cone still active stands in front of the main group, pouring a stream of boiling water into the cold surrounding lake. It is here that anglers catch the trout and cook them on the hook.
The boat failing to appear, Doane and his men started up the slope to the Divide in a “heavy and blinding snow storm” through a “tangled forest.” The weather turned very cold, travel was difficult up the slopes in snow some 2 feet in depth. On the top of the ridge it was necessary to stop and build a fire, the animals and men were “loaded with snow and ice.” The party reached a “hot spring basin” a mile from Heart Lake long after dark, built a great fire of seasoned pines, and spent most of the night drying out.
Doane was not at all satisfied with the route he had followed, and on the following day, in clear weather, the party worked its way back to Yellowstone Lake by a route which proved to be much shorter. The boat not having arrived, a watchfire to serve as a beacon was built on a bluff on the lake shore. Doane’s entry in the journal for October 30 indicates his concern for the fate of the voyageurs, Starr, Applegate, and Ward.
That was their third day and I was consumed with anxiety. A cold, wintry blast was driving down the lake in a direction at right angles to their course. The waves were running high and on the opposite shore we could see the surf flying against the rocks, covering them with glittering masses of ice. It was growing colder every minute, and the night was intensely dark. A driving sleet began to fall. This was dangerous, as it adhered to whatever it touched. Our apprehensions were almost beyond endurance. I knew those men would start that night no matter what perils might be encountered. They had twenty miles to come, in an egg shell boat which had never been tried in rough water. Nothing could live in that icy flood half an hour, if cast overboard. The wind and cold were both increasing constantly. Hour after hour passed. I followed the beach a couple of miles, but finding no traces returned. The Sergeant went in the other direction with like results. We were standing together on the shore despairing when suddenly there was borne to us on the driving blast the sound of boisterous and double jointed profanity. The voice was Starr’s and we knew that the daring, invincible men were safe and successful. We ran to meet them and helped them beach, and unload the few articles that the boat contained. The oars were coated an inch thick and the boat was half full of solid ice. When the three men came in front of the camp fire, they were a sight to behold. Their hair and beards were frozen to their caps and overcoats and they were sheeted with glistening ice from head to foot.
The boat had nearly filled three different times, but Applegate, who steered, threw her bow to the waves and held her there while the others bailed her out. They found that she would not bear the cross sea, so they kept her head to the wind, and forced her to make leeway by pulling stronger on the opposite side and working the steering oar to correspond. Thus they battled with the storm hour after hour until they had drifted twenty miles and reached the other shore. We changed clothing with them and after giving them a warm supper made them go to bed at once. The rest of the night we put in drying their clothes, as they soundly slept.
On October 31, the boat was cleared of ice by chopping it out with axes, hot ashes were thrown in to dry her out inside, and “slipper poles” were cut and fitted under her to serve as runners. Dragging side poles were also attached to fend her off standing trees in passing. Two mules were hitched to the boat in tandem to drag her, and although progress was slow because the boat frequently became wedged between trees, and the deep snow made travel very difficult for the mules, the Divide was crossed, and “at 9 o’clock at night we left her on the Pacific slope of the Rocky Mountains, and went on with the tired stock into camp.”
On November 2, the extra men, Ward and Osborn, with their horses and the 3 poorest mules, were started back to Fort Ellis, since they were no longer needed. They were to pick up the mules and property left at different points on the way, and after an arduous trip of several days they reached Fort Ellis safely.
The Lieutenant and his reduced party now had 7 horses and 4 pack mules. In camp at Heart Lake it was necessary to make extensive repairs to the boat, the cold had “shrunken the boards and opened all the seams.” She was finally in order and launched on Heart Lake on November 5. During this layover the party feasted on baked porcupine, which “resembled in taste young pork with a faint flavor of pine.”
The party moved across and around Heart Lake on November 6, the boat loaded with all the equipment, the horses and mules taken along the western shore. It was necessary to drag the boat across the frozen lower section of the lake for some 3 miles to the outlet, there the volume of the stream was so small it would not float the craft, even unloaded, over the rocks of the stream bed. For the next several days the “little vessel,” the men, and the animals took a beating from the stream, the weather, and the terribly hard going.
November 18th. Reached camp in the forenoon with all the calking melted out of the seams and all the ice thawed out of the interior of the boat by the floods of boiling water passed through in the river channel just above. Took her out of the water and put her on the stocks to be dried out and thoroughly repaired. Her bottom was a sight to behold. The green pine planks were literally shivered by pounding on the rocks. The tough stripping of the seams, two inches or more in thickness, was torn away. Two of the heaviest planks were worn through in the waist of the vessel, and three holes were found in her sides. The stern was so bruised and stove that we had to hew out a new one. We took out the seats, floor, and bulkheads, and this gave us lumber enough to put on a new bottom. Mended the holes with tin and leather. Recalked her, using candles and pitch mixed for the filling. Split young pines and put a heavy strip on each seam and made her stronger than ever. This occupied the 19th which was a stormy day, and the 20th, which was clear long enough to enable us to finish the boat. When it is remembered that the wood had to be dry before the pitch would adhere, and that we were obliged to keep a bed of coals under the boat constantly to effect this on ground saturated with snow water and with the snow falling most of the time, it can be realized that the labor was of the most fatiguing description. Half of the party worked while the others cared for the animals and slept. Warren here came out as an invaluable member of the party. He kept the camp full of trout and we fared sumptuously. The stream from Shoshone Lake is the true Snake River and not the one we are on. It is twice as large as this one, and should be mapped as the main stream.
From this point we feel sure of plenty of water and will start with a partial load in the boat. The strain on the animals has been terrible as they have had to double trip the route almost constantly, which means three times the distance of actual progress. We have had but little depth of snow, and this, while favorable in one sense, has been detrimental in another, as it has allowed the game to run high on the mountains, where we had not time to go. Had there been deeper snow, the water supply would have been greater, the game would have been forced down to the valleys, and we would not have been obliged to use the animals so constantly.
The problem was to get where the boat would carry the property and make distance before the animals gave out. Also to get to settlements before rations were exhausted. I knew we had the formidable “Mad River Canyon” of the old trappers between us and human habitations. With plenty of large game in range, this would have caused no uneasiness, but we were descending daily and leaving the game behind.
I spend many an hour over this problem studying all the chances, and endeavoring to be prepared to act instantly in any possible emergency that might arise.
The party resumed their travel on November 21, Doane, Starr, Applegate, and White in the boat, Sergeant Server, Warren, and Davis with the animals. The boat was headed down the now powerful stream, Applegate steering, Starr astride the bow. Starr and White were armed with “spike poles” to push her off rocks and guide her into deep channels.