wild-flowers, which make a rich carpet even up close to the white line
of the snow. I found among them wild varieties of the harebell,
larkspur, and sunflower, and many pansies. Upon the Silver Bow Creek is
a city of the same name, built in the winter, when it was hoped that
spring would prove the richness of its mines. From a distance it looked
like a large town; but upon riding in, we found only here and there a
straggling inhabitant. Other mines proved richer, and any purchaser can
buy its best house for less than the cost of drawing the logs to build
it. At Deer Lodge in this valley,--almost equal in extent and fertility
to that of the Gallatin,--old Johnny Grant lived for many years a life
of patriarchal serenity among his wives and concubines, his flocks and
herds. By constant presents of beads and whiskey, and many a warm meal
when on the war-path, he had raised himself high in the esteem of the
savages, and had a favorite squaw from almost every tribe among his
wives. When the Flatheads passed by, no woman appeared at his hearth but
a Flathead; when the Blackfeet came, the sole wife of his bosom was a
Blackfoot. Thus for many years, almost the only white man in these
solitudes, he lived at peace with the natives, a sharer in all their
spoils and arbiter in all their quarrels. And when the patriarch was
gathered to his fathers, he left cattle on a thousand hills to his son.
Young Johnny is a mere repetition of his father. He cannot read or
write, and in conversation his nominatives are not always true to his
verbs; but he has all the slyness and craftiness of the Indian. I heard
that he was immensely disgusted at the white immigration. He
acknowledges that his beeves are of greater value, and he has no small
admiration for dollars and cents; but he fears that his moral and
intellectual standing will suffer.

Passing down the Deer Lodge River,--

"In the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound
Save his own dashings,"--

we come to a pass through the mountains, called Hell-Gate by the
Flatheads, because through it rode the scalping parties of the Eastern
tribes. Beyond is the sunny valley of the Bitter Root. It has long been
settled by hardy trappers and hunters, and by comfortable farmers with
well-stored barns and granaries and fenced fields. There is a charm
about this isolated life, and a freshness and exhilaration about these
Daniel Boones, that one meets nowhere els