e called
sport--they lie in all the spring holes and creek mouths. This is the
head of the Henry's Fork of the Snake River, and a great spawning
ground. Now, you want to remember you're not on Missouri waters, but
Pacific waters. If Lewis and Clark had come over that shallow gap
yonder--the Raynolds Pass, which cuts off the Madison Valley--they'd
have been on one of the true heads of the Columbia. But they probably
never would have got through, that year, at least."

The young anglers found that their catch of trout created no enthusiasm
at the camp. The cook told them that he didn't care for these trout
very much, because you had to soak them overnight in salt and water to
make them fit to eat, they tasted so muddy in the summertime. So they
said they would not fish any more at that place.

That evening as they sat about their table engaged with their maps and
notebooks, they were joined by Jim, the son of the rancher, a young man
still in the half uniform of the returned soldier, with whom they all
rapidly made friends, the more so since he proved very well posted in
the geography of that part of the country. He readily agreed to take the
young explorers on a trip over the Raynolds Pass on the following
morning, so that they might get a better idea of the exact situation of
the Madison River.

They made an early start, leaving their Uncle Dick and Billy Williams at
the ranch to employ themselves as they liked. It was a drive of only a
few miles from the northern end of Henry's Lake, along a very good road,
to the crest of the gentle elevation which lay to the northward. The
young ranchman pulled up the car at last and pointed to an iron plug
driven down into the ground.

"Here's the Divide," said he. "You now are on top of the Rocky
Mountains, although it doesn't look like it."

"Why," said Jesse, "this looks like almost any sort of prairie country.
We have been in lots of places higher than this."

"Yes," said his new friend, "you can see lots of places higher than this
any way you look. She's only six thousand nine hundred and eleven feet
here. There are snow-topped mountains on every side of you. Where we are
right now is the upper line of the state of Idaho. Idaho sticks up in
here in a sort of pocket--swings up to the north and then back again.
The crest of the Divide is what makes the state line between Montana and
Idaho. Four feet that way we are on Idaho ground, but there's Montana
east of us, north of