Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. One hundred and seventy
years later, on February 16, 1913, a schoolgirl strolling with
some companions on a Sunday afternoon near the High School in the
town of Pierre, South Dakota, stumbled upon a projecting corner
of this tablet, which was in an excellent state of preservation.
Thus we know exactly where the brothers La Verendrye were on
April 2, 1743, when they bade farewell to their Indian friends
and set out on horseback for Fort La Reine.
Spring had turned to summer before the brothers reached their
destination. On July 2, 1743, they relieved the anxiety of their
waiting father after an absence of fifteen months. Moving slowly
as they did, could they have traveled from the distant Rockies
from the time in January when they turned back? It seems
doubtful; and in spite of the long-cherished belief that the
brothers reached the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, it may be
that they had not penetrated beyond the barrier which we know as
the Black Hills. The chance discovery of a forgotten plate by
school children may in truth prove that, as late as in 1750, the
Rocky Mountains had not yet been seen by white men and that the
first vision of that mighty range was obtained much farther north
in Canada.
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