Page:Hugh Pendexter--Kings of the Missouri.djvu/58

 one of their missionaries, Friar Escalante of Santa Fé, visited the lake in seventeen seventy-five. I believe M'sieu Bridger was the first. And do you know, my friend, we all believed the lake was an arm of the Pacific until the next season when four of our men visited it and explored the shore line in skin-boats and found it had no outlet."

"Bridger's a good mountain man, all right," shortly agreed Lander, his own failures making the other's praise offensive. "But he has his weak spots. All about cooking fish and meat in boiling springs, hot water shooting into the air nearly a hundred feet! If that wasn't enough he insists the hot water spouts at certain times, just so long a time apart. Wonder who keeps watch of it and turns it off and on every so often. Then there's his cave of Indian war-paint. Wonder why any Indians bother to trade robes for our vermilion when they can have it for nothing at any time!"

"That is up in the Crow country. He had a chance to look about up there. He may forget and fill up the chinks with fancies, yet he must have seen something," wistfully defended Papa Clair, his white brows drawn down in bushy