m
again.

"But I don't think the Indian girl knew anything much about the Snake,
though her people hunted all these branches. Her range was on the
Jefferson. She was young, too. Anyhow, that's what they called the
Missouri, till she began to peter out. That was where they named this
place where we are now. They concluded, since all the three rivers run
so near even, and split so wide, they'd call them after three great men,
Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin. But that wasn't till two weeks after
they'd left the Forks. Most folks thought they'd sprung the names as
soon as they seen the Forks, but they didn't.

"Lots of people right in here, too, even now, they think that Lewis and
Clark wintered right here at the Forks or on up near Dillon. I've heard
them argue that and get hot over it. Some said they wintered on an
island, near Dillon. Of course, they allow that Lewis and Clark got
across, but they say they was gone three years, not two. That's about as
much as the old _Journal_ is known to-day!

"Me living in here, I know all the creeks from here to the Sawtooth and
Bitter Roots, and my dad knew them, and I'll tell you it's a fright,
even now, to follow out exactly where all they went, or just how they
got over. The names on most of their creeks are changed now, so you
can't hardly tell them. About the best book to follow her through on is
that railroad man, Wheeler. He took a pack train, most ways, and stayed
with it.

"People get all mixed up on the old stuff, because we travel by rail
now, so much. For instance, Beaverhead Rock--and that's been a landmark
ever since Lewis and Clark come through--is disputed even now. You can
start a fight down at Dillon any time by saying that their Beaverhead
Rock is really Rattlesnake Rock--though I'll have to own it looks a lot
more like a beaver than the real rock does. That real one now is mostly
called the Point of Rocks.

"That's the way it goes, you see--everything gets all mixed up. The
miners named a lot of the old Lewis and Clark streams all over again.
Boulder Creek once was Frazier's Creek; Philosophy Creek they changed to
Willow Creek, just to be original. The Blacktail, away up in, was first
named after McNeal, and the North Boulder, this side of there, was first
called after Fields. The Pipestone used to be the Panther. You know the
Big Hole River, of course, where Butte gets the city water piped
from--used to be fine fishing till they spoiled it by fishing it t