By the time Stewart and his party had left the rendezvous and reached New Fork Lake, the weather had changed and winter was coming on. “Although it was the month of August, we had frequent snow and hail storms, and towards evening thick overcoats were almost indispensable to comfort,” Miller wrote. While most of the men lounged around the campsite or enjoyed the luxurious wines and cheeses that Stewart had brought along, several of the hunters were dispatched to look for mountain sheep or any other available game or fish that would be roasted over the constantly maintained campfire. “After the meal we could then sit patiently and listen to some Trapper relating reminiscences of his adventures—his huntings, and fightings with the Indians, and his loves… forming the principal ground work of his narrative.”
Miller devoted himself to sketching the pristine lakes and snow-covered peaks that surrounded the party and reflecting upon Sir Walter Scott’s “The Lady of the Lake”:
At length they came where, stern & steep,
The hill sinks down upon the deep;
Here the vast Lake in silver flows,
There ridge on ridge, the mountains rose…
(Ross, 1968, text accompanying plate 154)
Ron Tyler
