Under
the date of July 27, the journal says:--
"We are now very anxious to see the Snake Indians. After advancing for
several hundred miles into this wild and mountainous country, we may
soon expect that the game will abandon us. With no information of the
route, we may be unable to find a passage across the mountains when we
reach the head of the river--at least, such a pass as will lead us
to the Columbia. Even are we so fortunate as to find a branch of that
river, the timber which we have hitherto seen in these mountains does
not promise us any fit to make canoes, so that our chief dependence is
on meeting some tribe from whom we may procure horses. Our consolation
is that this southwest branch can scarcely head with any other river
than the Columbia; and that if any nation of Indians can live in the
mountains we are able to endure as much as they can, and have even
better means of procuring subsistence."
Chapter XII -- At the Sources of the Missouri
The explorers were now (in the last days of July, 1805) at the head of
the principal sources of the great Missouri River, in the fastnesses
of the Rocky Mountains, at the base of the narrow divide that separates
Idaho from Montana in its southern corner. Just across this divide are
the springs that feed streams falling into the majestic Columbia and
then to the Pacific Ocean. As has been already set forth, they named the
Three Forks for President Jefferson and members of his cabinet. These
names still survive, although Jefferson River is the true Missouri
and not a fork of that stream.
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