For the first five miles, the valley continues toward the southwest, being from two to three miles in width; then the main stream, which had received two small branches from the left in the valley, turned abruptly to the west through a narrow bottom between the mountains.

The road was still plain, and, as it led them directly on toward the mountain, the stream gradually became smaller, till, after going two miles, it had so greatly diminished in width that one of the men, in a fit of enthusiasm, with one foot on each side of the river, thanked God that he had lived to bestride the Missouri.

As they went along their hopes of soon seeing the Columbia (that is, the Pacific watershed) arose almost to painful anxiety, when after four miles from the last abrupt turn of the river (which turn had been to the west), they reached a small gap formed by the high mountains, which recede on each side, leaving room for the Indian road.
From the foot of one of the lowest of these mountains, which rises with a gentle ascent of about half a mile, issues the remotest water of the Missouri.
"They had now reached the hidden sources of that river, which had never yet been seen by civilized man.

As they quenched their thirst at the chaste and icy fountain--as they sat down by the brink of that little rivulet, which yielded its distant and modest tribute to the parent ocean--they felt themselves rewarded for all their labors and all their difficulties.
"They left reluctantly this interesting spot, and, pursuing the Indian road through the interval of the hills, arrived at the top of a ridge, from which they saw high mountains, partially covered with snow, still to the west of them.
"The ridge on which they stood formed the dividing line between the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

They followed a descent much steeper than that on the eastern side, and at the distance of three-quarters of a mile reached a handsome, bold creek of cold, clear water running to the westward.