Page:Columbus and other heroes of American discovery; (IA columbusotherher00bell).pdf/211

 it lay at her feet, he sprang up the ravine, closely followed by Chabornæan. So sudden was the rise of the water, that it was up to Clarke's waist before he gained the bank; and as he turned to look back on reaching that refuge, he saw the whole ravine filled, and the net from which the child had been rescued whirled rapidly out of sight. An instant's hesitation, and the whole party would have been swept down the Great Falls.

Returning in haste to his camp after this miraculous escape, Clarke found that his companions had suffered terribly in the storm. Many of the men were bleeding from wounds received from the hail; and after the rain and wind had ceased, the heat had been so excessive that even strong soldiers had succumbed to it. Some men sent back next day to look for Clarke's gun, compass and umbrella, which he had left behind in his hasty retreat, found only the compass, covered with mud and sand, at the mouth of the ravine, and reported that huge rocks now choked up what had been an empty defile when the leader's party had taken refuge in it.

Beyond the Great Falls the navigation of the Missouri was extremely arduous. The channel was often narrow, and much obstructed by shallows, inlets, and impediments of every description. Here and there, some village perched on a bluff overlooking the stream broke the almost solemn loneliness of the scene; but the quaint booths composing these villages were chiefly deserted, their owners, the Snakes or Shoshones, spending the greater part of their time in hunting. Onward, however, pressed the eight canoes, and about the middle of July the first spurs of the Rocky Mountains were reached, hemming in the river ever more and more, sometimes even almost shutting it in from light and air, so closely did the perpendicular cliffs on either side approach each other.

On the 19th July, the grand range of rocks from which the Missouri issues, forming one of the most magnificent mountain passes of the world, was reached, and the first part of the journey may be said to have been performed. Naming the pass the "Gates" of the Rocky Mountains, our heroes made their way through it in their canoes, each stroke of the paddle revealing fresh beauties and ever-increasing solemnity. "The convulsion of the passage," says Rees, alluding to the first breaking forth of the Missouri from its mountain cradle, "must have been terrible, since at its outlet there are vast columns of rock torn from the mountain, which are strewed on both sides of the river—the trophies, as it were, of the victory."

The Gates of the Rocky Mountains form a gorge of between five and six