Page:The Columbia River - Its History, Its Myths, Its Scenery Its Commerce.djvu/125

Rh Lewis and Clark, and having, to all appearance, a better equipped party, they did not make so good time. Guided by Indians, they crossed chain after chain of mountains, supposing each to be the summit, only to find another yet to succeed. At last on the 15th of September, they stood upon a lofty eminence over which they could gaze both eastward and westward. Scanning attentively the western horizon, the guide pointed out three shining peaks, whose bases, he told them, were touched by a tributary of the Columbia River. These peaks are now known as the Three Tetons.

And now the party set forth upon the long descent of the western slope, passing mountain after mountain and stream after stream, some of the way in boats which the voyageurs made from the green timber of the forests, and much of the way being obliged to carry their effects around cataracts and rapids, and thus losing much time. Nevertheless, they found one long stretch of over a hundred miles upon the upper Snake which they navigated with comparative ease. But having reached what is now known as the Seven Devils country in South-western Idaho, they found themselves in a chain of rapids and precipitous bluffs where neither boats nor horses, apparently nothing but wings, could be of service. This was in fact the beginning of over a hundred miles of the most ragged and inaccessible region upon the whole course of the Snake River, a region which even to this day contains neither road nor steamboat route, and by which the great State of Idaho is separated into two divisions, neither directly accessible to the other by any ordinary modes of travel.