t carry off the old river. If
they could, I guess they'd have done that, too."

That night the stars came out astonishingly brilliant and large. The
silence of the great hills was unbroken even by a coyote's howl. To them
all, half dozing by their little fire, it did indeed seem they had found
their ultimate wilderness, after all.

The chill of morning still was over all the high country when they got
astir and began to care for the horses on their picket ropes and to
finish the cooking of their remaining food. Then, each now leading his
horse, they began to thread their way downhill. Over country where now
they had established the general courses, it was easier for such good
mountain travelers to pick out a feasible way down. They crossed the
canyon at about the same place, but swung off more to the right, and
early in the morning were descending a timbered slope which brought them
to the edge of the Alaska Basin and the Red Rock road. They now were on
perfect footing and not far from the Culver camp, so they took plenty of
time.

"The name 'Culver Canyon' did not seem to stick," said Billy, as they
marked the gorge where the river debouched, far to their right, now. "I
don't know what the surveyors call it--they never have done much over in
here but guess at things mostly--but the name 'Hell Roaring Canyon' is
the one that I've always heard used for it. It's not much known even
now. A few people call it the 'real head of the Missouri,' but nobody in
here seems to know much about its history, or to care much about it.
They all just say it's a mighty rough canyon, up in. Somehow, too, the
place has a bad name for storms. I've heard a rancher say, over east of
the pass, on Henry's Lake, that in the winter it got black over in here
on Jefferson, and he couldn't sleep at night, sometimes, because of the
noise of the storms over in these canyons. Oh, I reckon she's wild, all
right.

"Now, below the mouth, you'll see all the names are off. Hell Roaring
breaks into four channels just at the mouth, over the wash. Fact is,
there's seven channels across the valley, in all, but four creeks are
permanent, and they wander all out yonder, clean across the valley, but
come together below, above the upper lake; and that's the head of the
Red Rock, which ought to be called the Missouri by rights.

"And you ought to have seen the grayling once, in all these branches!"
he added. "No finer fishing ever was in the world. The water's a