Although the names given by Clark on his voyage down the Yellowstone have survived better than have most of those applied by the explorers in other regions, several of the most picturesque have not stood the test of time and chance. Shield's River, Pryor's Fork and Clark's Fork still bear their original names, but Thy Snag'd Creek and River Across are no more. The former has become Deer Creek and the latter pair have been given individual names--that flowing in from the north Big Timber Creek, that from the south Boulder River. No more original and distinctive dual nomenclature for streams flowing into a river on opposite sides of the same point could have been imagined. It is a pity that, in the nature of the case, it could not fill the nomenclatural exigency sufficiently to survive. Fortunately for me the peculiar meteorological conditions of the morning did not develop along what I subsequently learned was their normal course at that time of year. Ordinarily a pow-wow of thunder-storms in the mountain-top in the morning means a concerted attack upon the valley in the afternoon. This time the advent of a warm southerly wind modified the assault-and-battery program and brought only a drizzling rain on the river. The broken piers of Greycliff's ruined bridge menaced me from the mist as I drove past, and below the new bridge the sagging strand of a slackened cable swooped at me from the air. Then came a sharp bend, with the roar of a considerable rapid booming in the grey obscurity below. The rain and the mist deadened the sound somewhat, just as they confused the perspective. Standing up on the thwart in an endeavour to get a better view, I was warned by the accelerating undulations of the skiff that I had floated right onto the intake of a riffle which I had assumed was still several hundred yards distant. Hastening to straighten the cushion on my seat before taking to my oars, I was jolted from my feet by the first solid wave, so that I sat with my full weight upon the doubled-up index finger of my left hand. I distinctly recall either hearing or feeling the snap of what I thought at the moment was a tendon, but as the finger still crooked with its fellow round its oar I gave it no more thought until I had slammed through to quieter water, a quarter of a mile below. Then I found the finger was bent inward to the resemblance of a rather open letter C. Taking it for granted it was dislocated, I started and kept on pulling it until another riffle demanded personal attention. Always afraid to take it to a doctor for fear of being held up, at gradually increasing intervals I kept on trying to pull that drooping pointer into place for the next two months. It was in St. Louis that I found that two bones had been broken in the first place, and that they had probably been re-broken every time I pulled the finger afterwards. It is not quite back to shape yet, which, everything considered, is hardly to be wondered at.