As They Went Along Their Hopes Of Soon Seeing The Columbia [That Is, The Pacific Watershed] Arose Almost To Painful

Anxiety, when after four miles from the last abrupt turn of the river [which turn had been to the west]

, They reached a small gap formed by the high mountains, which recede on each side, leaving room for the Indian road. From the foot of one of the lowest of these mountains, which rises with a gentle ascent of about half a mile, issues the remotest water of the Missouri.

"They had now reached the hidden sources of that river, which had never yet been seen by civilized man. As they quenched their thirst at the chaste and icy fountain - as they sat down by the brink of that little rivulet, which yielded its distant and modest tribute to the parent ocean - they felt themselves rewarded for all their labors and all their difficulties.

"They left reluctantly this interesting spot, and, pursuing the Indian road through the interval of the hills, arrived at the top of a ridge, from which they saw high mountains, partially covered with snow, still to the west of them.

"The ridge on which they stood formed the dividing line between the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. They followed a descent much steeper than that on the eastern side, and at the distance of three-quarters of a mile reached a handsome, bold creek of cold, clear water running to the westward. They stopped to taste, for the first time, the waters of the Columbia; and, after a few minutes, followed the road across steep hills and low hollows, when they came to a spring on the side of a mountain. Here they found a sufficient quantity of dry willow-brush for fuel, and therefore halted for the night; and, having killed nothing in the course of the day, supped on their last piece of pork, and trusted to fortune for some other food to mix with a little flour and parched meal, which was all that now remained of their provisions."

Chapter XIII

From the Minnetarees to the Shoshonees

Travelling in a westerly direction, with a very gradual descent, Captain Lewis, on the thirteenth of August, came upon two Indian women, a man, and some dogs.

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