=145. On the Watershed.= Standing on the watershed of a continent, he saw the beginnings of rivers that flow into the Atlantic, and of others that stretched away through unknown regions to the Pacific. He took four men and climbed what has since been called Fremonts Peak, one of the highest of the Rockies, about 13,800 feet above the sea. At the top Fremont unfurled the Stars and Stripes in all its glory! =146. A Pathway to the Pacific.= Fremont reported his discovery at Washington and immediately applied for orders to make an expedition to discover a more southerly route to California and Oregon. [Sidenote: =Beholds Great Salt Lake=] [Illustration: GAZING OUT AT THE BEGINNINGS OF RIVERS] He left the little town of Kansas City with his guide, Kit Carson, in May, 1843. In September, after traveling seventeen hundred miles, the little party beheld the shores of Great Salt Lake. What feelings must have stirred the breasts of men shut in for months by mountains, at seeing what appeared to be an ocean, here in the midst of a continent! Little did they dream of that hardy band of immigrants, so soon to follow, who would make the shores of this sea blossom like a garden. Fremont wrote: "As we looked over that vast expanse of water and strained our eyes along the silent shores, over which hung so much doubt and uncertainty, I could hardly repress the almost irresistible desire to continue our exploration." [Illustration: FREMONT'S MEN BUILDING A FIRE IN THE SNOW] [Sidenote: =Reaches Fort Vancouver=] After making preparations, the party crossed over to a branch of the Columbia River. Down this stream they traveled until Fort Vancouver was reached on November 4. Here Fremont was the guest of the governor of the British Hudson Bay Company. [Sidenote: =Travel in deep snow=] [Sidenote: =Crossing the Sierra Nevada=] November 10, on the way home, the little party started to make the circuit of the Great Basin, a vast depression beyond the east wall of the Sierra Nevada. But very soon they found deep snow on the mountains. Turning to the west at about the latitude of San Francisco, Fremont determined to cross the Sierra Nevada into the valley of the Sacramento. The river was not many miles distant. [Illustration: FREMONT'S EXPEDITION REACHING SUTTER'S FORT, CALIFORNIA] But what miles! Up and down, up and down that snowy mountain range, which the Indians told him no man could cross in winter, with snow lying upon it as deep as the dark forest trees were high, and places where, if a man slipped off, he would fall half a mile without stopping! [Sidenote: =In the Valley of the Sacramento=]