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 trong hands had scarcely removed the lodge and quenched the burning leather before the tree itself fell directly over the spot where a moment before the Captains were sleeping soundly.

And so that stream was named the Burnt Lodge Creek.

XIV

THE SHINING MOUNTAINS

Ascending the highest summit of the hills on the north side of the river, on Sunday, the 26th of May, Captain Lewis first caught a distant view of "the Rock mountains—the object of all our hopes, and the reward of all our ambition."

"When I viewed—I felt a secret pleasure,—but when I reflected on the difficulties which this snowy barrier would most probably throw in my way to the Pacific, and the sufferings and hardships of myself and party in them, it in some measure counterbalanced the joy."

Bold and bolder grew the river shores. The current now became too rapid for oars, too deep for poles. Nothing but the tow-line could draw the boats against the swift flow of the mountain torrent. Struggling along shore with the rope on their shoulders, the men lost their moccasins in the clinging clay and went barefoot. Sometimes knee-deep, they waded, sometimes waist-deep, shoulders-deep, in the icy water, or rising on higher benches walked on flinty rocks that cut their naked feet.

Leaping out of the mountains, came down a laughing sparkling river, the clearest they had yet seen. Its valley seemed a paradise of ash and willow, honeysuckles and wild roses. Standing on its bank Clark mused, "I know but one other spot so beautiful. I will name this river for my little mountain maid of Fincastle, the Judith."

Could he then foresee that Judith would beco