Once across the bar, the broad bay and river-mouth offer easy navigation, and it is a beautiful voyage, though a short one, up to the site of the fine, prosperous American city which now stands at this gateway, where the Far West opens into the Far East. As the last quarter of the eighteenth century fairly developed, an event took place which perhaps, influenced the destinies of man more than any other of modern times. Garces and Escalante had barely completed their entradas before the guns of the American Revolution had for ever shattered the fetters of a new people on the Atlantic seaboard, where a youthful giant sprang into being, a portent for Spain of great danger. The Spaniards posted their sentinels facing that way. [Illustration] FOOTNOTES: [49] Some years ago, Col. John Reid found on his farm, six miles west of Lexington, Mo., and two miles from the river, a silver-plated halberd, together with some old French and Spanish coins. The articles were six feet below the surface, and were exposed by the cutting of a creek. Later owned by Mr. Jo. A. Wilson of Lexington. This halberd does not indicate Coronado's presence, but it is interesting in this connection. The French coins would suggest a later time—dates not known. [50] _Travels in the Interior of America_, John Bradbury, edition of 1817, p. 12. [51] See _La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West_, by Francis Parkman. [52] See _The Expedition of Pedro de Villazur_, by A. F. Bandelier, _Papers of the Archæological Institute of America, American Series V._ [53] _Sieur de la Verendrye and His Sons_, etc., by Rev. E. D. Neill, in _Contributions, Montana Historical Society_, vol. i., p. 267. See also _Report on Canadian Archives_, Douglas Brymner, and Thwaite's _Rocky Mountain Exploration_, p. 27 _et seq._ [54] Among the papers of James Stuart, who was long resident in that region, was found a memorandum referring to some monument "twenty feet in diameter—on river bluffs—round and run to point—spaces between boulders filled with green grass and weeds." _Contributions, Historical Society of Montana_, vol. i., p. 272. [55] See Greenhow's _History of Oregon and California_, p. 140, _et seq._, second ed. [56] _Travels throughout the Interior Parts of North America in 1766-8_, by Jonathan Carver. The descriptions of native tribes contained in this book are, according to Greenhow, not original, but mainly translations from Lahontan. _Greenhow_, p. 144. second ed. [Illustration] CHAPTER VIII