Miller’s accounts of the mountain lakes that he painted are mixed between sublime descriptions of the scenery and allusions to the continued “High Jinks” of the relaxing and rowdy trappers. Miller said he would let his sketch do the talking for him, as it “will do more than any words we can use in giving an idea of the sublimity and beauty of this scene—to the left a solid immense rock rises sheer out of the water to a great height,–its dark grey shadow forming a striking contrast to the sharp-pinnacled snow-covered mountains in the distance.” Words also failed him in describing the events of the evening. Stewart had brought two ankers of brandy and port wine with him, and as they reached the shore of what is probably New Fork Lake, identified by J.D. (Sam) Drucker, a Bureau of Land Management archaeologist in Pinedale, Wyoming, “christen[ed] them on the same night.” “We are compelled to draw a slight veil over the proceedings,” he wrote. “‘Gentlemen’ will mix their liquors—wit came from some that were never suspected of having before such an article about them, and… it was found advisable to let them lie under the first bush they happened to fall.” (Ross, 1968, text accompanying plate 146)
