The next thing I know, it's early morning, and sunlight is pricking through the mosquito netting on the tent door If I half close my eyes, I can see patterns in the sparkles of light: a grid like a ticktacktoe game and a leaf and a spray of flowers. I feel lazy and comfortable enough that I'd like to stay in my sleeping bag, but I can hear the others already getting breakfast.

Amy chatters too brightly as we take down our tent and stuff our sleeping bags into their sacks. She goes on about everything except Midnight.

Today's goal is one of the lakes in the long chain of high mountain lakes that we saw from the top of Stuart Peak.

Amy runs ahead, dashes off the trail, pops up behind us, and, generally, does her best to make a nuisance of herself.

"You're going to wear yourself out," Meg tells her.

Dad, scouting for interesting birds to watch, is hiking up where our talking won't make him miss hearing them. Now, though, he calls to Amy to look through his binoculars at an eagle soaring high overhead.

She ignores him and dashes into the woods again, and the next time she reappears, Meg tells her, "Calm down now, Amy. I do not want you out of sight."

"Okay!" Amy says, "but I don't see why." She hurries to put some distance between her and us, and then she settles into a defiant stride.

"She was pretty upset about Midnight," I say.

"I know," Meg answers. "But I don't know what to do except let her be for now. Sometimes people need time to lick their wounds the way animals do."

THE TRAIL ENTERS a sloping mountai^ meadow dotted with red paintbrush and small yellow flowers like daisies. The morning sun gives the hillsides a golden hue, and above them the sky is deep blue and cloudless.

"Did you ever see a prettier day?" Meg asks. "1 hope this weather holds. It's perfect for hiking, and it will make the working part of our trip easier."

"It would have been nice if the Randalls had spotted something helpful," I say.

"I'm just as glad they didn't," Meg replies. "They might not have known not to disturb things. It's a perennial problem—someone finds an object of historic interest and carts it away to display on a coffee table. Or maybe even brings it to my office thinking they're doing a good deed."

"Like the guy with the kettle."

"Yep. What people don't realize is that when you remove an object from its context, you destroy much of its value as an artifact that can help explain the site."

Meg gives me a wry smile. "What they also don't realize is that removing artifacts like old tools and cabin hardware can be a violation of both the Antiquities Act and the laws against taking things from federal land."

I say, "What I don't get is why you're setting out on foot, without equipment, to find this place. Isn't there technology to help? I read about how people used aerial photography and infrared film to find fire rings along Lewis and Clark's route."

"That kind of archaeology takes money, so you have to set priorities," Meg says. "The journey made by Lewis and Clark was unique in our country's history, while there were probably hundreds of homesteads like the Bottners'. Thousands, maybe."

"Then why do you want to find it?"

"Because it might fill in a little of the story of what happened here in western Montana. In the 'Snake, especially."

"So what do you do? Just walk around and hope to come across something?"

Meg laughs. "With any archaeological project, the work starts with learning all you can of an area's history. Then once you're in the field, you still have to work from a grasp of what time does to artifacts and structures—how it deteriorates some things fester than others, and how it lays down soil until the past is compressed in the layers beneath your feet."

"That you work through backward?"

"That you work through backward," Meg agrees. And then whatever you find has to be interpreted. That's where the real skill comes in, and where one historian's work gets separated from another's."

"Music's that way," I say. "The actual music that a composer writes doesn't change, but every musician interprets it a little differently."

"I wouldn't have thought of that analogy, but it's a good one." Meg gives me a grin. "I've talked your ear off haven't I?"

"No," I tell her "I was interested. You really love it, don't you? Your work, I mean."

"I do," she says. "I surely do."