They cut down trees and built
corduroy bridges. But in sixteen years it has not been used. No wheels
have worn it smooth. It takes its leisurely way, now through wilderness,
now through burnt country where the trees stand stark and dead, now
through prairie or creek-bottom, now up, now down, always with the
range rising abruptly to the east, and with the Flathead River somewhere
to the west.
It will not take much expenditure to make that old wagon-trail into a
good road. It has its faults. It goes down steep slopes--on the second
day out, the chuck-wagon got away, and, fetching up at the bottom, threw
out Bill the cook and nearly broke his neck. It climbs like a cat after
a young robin. It is rocky or muddy or both. But it is, potentially, a
road.
The Rocky Mountains run northwest and southeast, and in numerous basins,
fed by melting glaciers and snow-fields, are deep and quiet lakes. These
lakes, on the west side, discharge their overflow through roaring and
precipitous streams to the Flathead, which flows south and east. While
our general direction was north, it was our intention to turn off east
and camp at the different lakes, coming back again to the wagon-trail to
resume our journey.
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