On the 29th of June, Captain Clarke left the canoes, and went on to the falls, accompanied by a black servant, named York, an Indian and his wife, with her young child. On arriving there, they observed a very dark cloud rising in the west, which threatened rain. They therefore looked around for shelter, but could find no place where they would be secure from being blown into the river, if the wind should prove as violent as it sometimes does in the plains. At length, about a quarter of a mile above the falls, they found a deep ravine, where there were some shelving rocks; and under these they took refuge. Being now perfectly safe from the rain, they laid down their guns and compass, and the other articles which they had brought with them. The shower was, at first, moderate; but it increased to a heavy rain, the effects of which they did not feel: soon afterwards, a torrent of intermingled hail and rain was poured from the clouds: the rain seemed to fall in a solid mass; and, collecting in the ravine, it came rolling down, like a cataract, carrying along with it mud and rocks, and every thing that opposed it. Captain Clarke saw the torrent a moment before it reached them; and, springing up, with his gun and shot-pouch in his left hand, he, with his right, clambered up the steep cliff, pushing on before him the Indian woman, with her child in her arms. Her husband, too, had seized her hand, and was dragging her up the hill; but he was so terrified at the danger, that, but for Captain Clarke, himself and his wife and child would have been lost. So instantaneous was the rise of the water, that before Captain Clarke had reached his gun, and had begun to ascend the bank, the water was up to his waist; and he could scarcely get up faster than it rose, till it reached the height of fifteen feet. Had they waited a moment longer, it would have swept them all into the river, just above the great cataract, down which they must inevitably have been precipitated. They had been obliged to escape so rapidly, that Captain Clarke lost his compass and umbrella: the Indian left his gun, shot-pouch, and tomahawk; and the Indian woman had just time to grasp her child, before the net, in which it had lain at her feet, was carried down the current.
After the storm was over, they proceeded to a fountain, perhaps the largest in America. It is situated in a pleasant, level plain, and about twenty-five yards from the river, into which it falls over some steep, irregular rocks.
In this part of the country a remarkable phenomenon was noticed. A loud report, precisely resembling the sound of a cannon, was repeatedly heard from the mountains, at different times, both of the day and night; sometimes in one stroke; at others, in five or six successive discharges. This report was occasionally heard when the air was perfectly still and without a cloud; and it was supposed to be occasioned by the bursting of rocks.
The party, continuing indefatigable in their exertions, dragged the canoes, or pushed them along with poles, up the current of the Missouri. This they did, day after day, until the 27th of June, when they arrived at the Three forks of the river; that is, at the point at which three rivers, each of considerable size, flow together, and form the great stream. As it was difficult to determine the largest of the three, Captains Lewis and Clarke decided on discontinuing here the appellation of Missouri; and named the streams, respectively, Jefferson's, Madison's, and Gallatin's river. As the first of these flowed from the west, they ascended it in preference to the others; but they continued to experience great difficulty with the canoes, in consequence of the rapidity of the current.
They were now approaching the termination of the first great division of their journey. The river continued to lessen as they proceeded: its width, in the part at which they arrived on the 8th of July, was not more than forty yards; and, on the 11th, it was diminished to twelve, so as to admit of being waded over without hazard. They had now proceeded, by computation, three thousand miles from the mouth of the Missouri; and they, not long afterwards, reached its extreme navigable point, in latitude 43 degrees 30 minutes, and nearly in longitude 112 degrees west from Greenwich.
Here they laid up their canoes, until they should return from the Pacific ocean; and, proceeding by land, had the gratification of tracing the current to its fountain head, in the midst of the Rocky Mountains.
Seventeenth Day's Instruction.
WESTERN TERRITORY CONTINUED.
Narrative of Lewis and Clarke's Travels from the Source of the Missouri to the Pacific Ocean.