"Go on, Billy, go on!" said Rob, eagerly. "You're the first man I ever knew who'd actually been over this ground in here. All we've done has been to read about it; and that's different. A country on a map is one thing, but a country lying out of doors on the ground is different." "I'll agree to that," said Billy. "If you ever once figure out a country by yourself, you never get lost in it again. You can easy get lost with a map and a compass. "Well now, the miners changed more names, too. It was on Willard's Creek, named after one of the Lewis and Clark men, that they found the gold at Bannack camp. They called that Grasshopper Creek and left poor Willard out. And then they called the Philanthropy River, which comes in from the south, opposite to the Wisdom--Lewis called them that because Thomas Jefferson was so wise and so philanthropic, you know--well, they changed that to the Stinking Water! "Yet 'Philanthropy' would have been a good name for that. On one of the side creeks to it they found Alder Gulch in 1863; and Alder Gulch put Montana on the map and started the bull outfits moving out from Benton, at the head of navigation. That's where Virginia City is now. Nice little town, but not wild like she was. "Now, the old trail--where the road agents used to waylay the travelers--led from Bannack to the Rattlesnake, down the Rattlesnake to the Jefferson, down the Jefferson to the Beaverhead Rock, then across the Jefferson and over the Divide to Philanthropy. And that was one sweet country to live in, in those days, my dad said! The road agents had a fine organization, and they knew every man going out with dust. So they'd lay in wait and kill him. They killed over a hundred men, that way, till the Vigilantes broke in on them. The best men in early Montana were among the Vigilantes--all the law-and-order men were. But right from where we're standing now, on the Lewis Rock, you're looking over one of the wildest parts of this country, or any other country. You ought to read Langford's book, _Vigilante Days and Ways_. I've got that in my library, up at my ranch, too." "You know your part of this country mighty well, Billy," said Uncle Dick, after a time. "I've known you did, for a long time." "I love it, that's all!" said the young ranchman. "Now what shall we do, sir?" he added, after a time; "go on up to my ranch, or go on to the mouth of the Columbia River, or go to the true head of the Missouri River, or go back to Great Falls--or what?" "What do you want to do, Billy?" "Anything suits me. Barring the towns, I can go anywhere on earth with Sleepy and Nigger, and almost anywhere on earth with my flivver. I wouldn't stay here for a camp, because it's not convenient. The mosquitoes are about done now, and the camping's fine all over. Fishing's good, too, right now; and I know where they are."