Camping and Hunting ifi the Skoskone 



denser air in which ordinary Hfe is to be 

 sustained, fell full into the gorge. 



I recall, too, another bit of rocky sce- 

 nery as unlike this one I have tried to sketch 

 as I can well fancy is possible ; and I single 

 it out of a possible score of such places 

 because it, like the first, is accessible to or- 

 dinary travellers, — the mouth of Clarke's 

 Fork Canon. Clarke's Fork River rushes 

 to the plains through one of the grandest 

 canons in the Rocky Mountains. For fif- 

 teen miles an old and difficult hunter's 

 trail leads down its precipitous sides ; but 

 this is not much used at present, such 

 travel as does find its way to Cooke City 

 Mines from the eastward going over the 

 long, but comparatively easy, ascent of 

 Dead Indian Mountain. At a first glance, 

 the river-gorge is absolutely impassable ; 

 a sentinel-cliff seems to guard its moun- 

 tain solitudes, and bar all human progress 

 upward. I have heard my hunter say 

 that, when trout-fishing in one of the 

 deepest spots in that canon, he saw clearly 

 the stars at mid-day ; and I believe it, for 

 even where the steep trail passes — and it 

 passes at a considerable height above the 

 torrent, and so avoids the deepest gloom — 

 it is murky enough. 



But the view of the rocky gateway to 



59 



