The Young Alaskans on the Missouri - Emerson Hough (best books for students to read TXT) 📗

world! When they come back, maybe they—maybe you—will know why so many boys now are asleep in the Argonne hills and woods in France. Maybe they’ll see the old Lewis and Clark trail extending on out across the Pacific, even.”

“You’re so funny, Richard!”

“Oh, I reckon so, I reckon so! The old Crusaders were funny people, too—marching all the way from England and France, just to take Jerusalem. But look what a walk they had!”

CHAPTER II READY FOR THE RIVER

Uncle Dick made his way to the library room, where he found his three young companions on so many other trips of adventure.[1]

“So there you are, eh?” he began. “Rob, I see you’re poring over some old book, as usual. What is it—same Journal of Lewis and Clark?”

“Yes, sir,” said Rob McIntyre looking up, his eyes shining. “It’s great!”

“And here’s John Hardy with his maps!” exclaimed Jesse Wilcox. “Look it! He’s got a notion he can do a map as well as Captain William Clark.”

“He’s something of a born map maker, then!” responded Uncle Dick. “There was one of the born geniuses of the world in map making. What a man he’d have been in our work—running preliminary surveys! He just naturally knew the way across country, and he just naturally knew how to set it down. On hides, with a burnt stick—on the sand with a willow twig—in the ashes with a pipe stem—that’s how his maps grew. The Indians showed him; and he showed us.”

“I’ve often tried to tell,” said Rob, “which was the greater of those two men, Clark or Lewis.”

“You never will,” said his uncle. “They were the two greatest bunkies and buddies of all the world. Clark was the redhead; Lewis the dark and sober man. Clark was the engineer; Lewis the leader of men. Clark had the business man in him; Lewis something more—the vision, the faith of the soul as much as the self-reliance of the body. A great pair.”

“I’ll say they were!” assented John. “My! what times!”

“And what a country!” added Jesse, looking up from his map.

“Yes, son; and what a country!” His uncle spoke seriously.

“But now, fellows,” he added, “about that little pasear of ours—that slide of a couple of thousand miles this summer, up the little old Missouri to the Rockies and down the river again—thing we were talking of—what do you say?”

“Oh, but we can’t!” said Jesse.

“Oh, but I’ll bet we can!” said John, who caught a twinkle in Uncle Dick’s eye.

“Yes, and we will!” said Rob, also noting his smile.

“Yes,” said Uncle Dick. “I’ve just come from talking with the acting commanding officer. She says that on the whole she gives consent, provided I don’t keep you out of school.”

“It took Lewis and Clark two years,” demurred John. “But they were out of school—even though poor Will Clark hadn’t learned much about spelling. They didn’t have to get back by the first week in September.”

“And we don’t want to scamp it,” said thoroughgoing, sober Rob.

“But we don’t want to motor it,” countered John.

“I’ll tell you,” said Jesse Wilcox, the youngest and smallest of the three. “We can go by power boat, most way, anyhow. That’s not scamping it, all things considered, is it?”

“By Jove!” said Uncle Dick, and again: “By Jove! An idea!”

“But about how big a boat do you think this particular family, just after the war, can afford?”

“We could easy buy a riverman’s fishing skiff,” said Jesse, sagely; “twenty feet long and narrow bottomed, but she floats light and runs easy and can carry a load.”

“But that’s not a motor boat, son,” said Uncle Dick. “Do you think we can row to the head of the Missouri and get back by September?”

“Outboard motor,” said Jesse, calmly.

“Hah! As though that could stem the June rise on the Muddy!”

“Two outboard motors, one on each side the stern, rigged on a cross plank,” said Jesse, never smiling. “Besides, a head sail when the wind is right behind. And a rope if we got a head wind. And the oars and paddles, too. We’ve paddled hours. Every little.”

“We could get gas easy,” said John. “Lots of towns all along, now.”

“Easy as shooting fish,” drawled Jesse. “I’m making a model of a new flying ship now, though it isn’t all done. I can run one of those motors.”

“What say, Rob?” Uncle Dick turned to the oldest of the three, and the one of soberest judgment, usually.

“I shouldn’t wonder if it’s the answer, sir,” said Rob. “How many miles a day must we average?”

“As many as we can. Lewis and Clark and their big boat did eight or ten, sometimes fifteen or twenty—the average was about nine miles a day. It took them all summer and fall to get to the Mandans. That’s above Mandan, South Dakota—a thousand miles or so, eh?”

“Just sixteen hundred and ten miles, sir,” said Rob, “according to their figures. Just about nine miles a day, start to finish of that part of the run, here to the Mandans—though the modern estimates only call it fourteen hundred and fifty-two miles.”

“If we can’t beat that average I’ll eat the boat,” said Jesse, gravely.

“Well,” said Uncle Dick, beginning to bite his fingers, as he often did when studying some problem, “let’s see. A good kicker might do two or three miles an hour, by picking out the water. Two good kickers might put her up to five, good conditions. Some days we might do forty miles.”

“And some days, on long reaches and the wind O.K., we’d do forty-five or fifty,” said Rob. “Of course, we can’t figure on top notch all the way. We’ve got to include bad days, break-downs, accidents, delays we can’t figure on at home, but that always get in their work somehow. Look at all our own other trips.”

“Depends on how many hours you work,” said Frank. “We don’t belong to the longshoremen’s union, you know. Some days we might travel twelve hours, if we’d nothing else to do. And I don’t think there’s much fishing, and it would be off season for shooting, most of the time.”

“I’ll tell you,” said Uncle Dick, after a time. “I doubt if we could do it all the way by boat by September. But I’ll see your teacher, here in St. Louis, where we’re all going to winter this year, and arrange with him to let you study outside for the first few weeks of the fall term in case we don’t get back. You’ll have to work while you travel, understand that.”

The boys all agreed to this and gave their promise to do their best, if only they could be allowed to make this wonderful trip over the first and greatest exploring trail of the West.

“It can perhaps be arranged,” said Uncle Dick.

“You mean, it has been arranged!” said Rob. “You’ve spoken to our school principal!”

“Well, yes, then! And you can cut off a little from the spring term, too. But it’s all on condition that you come back also with a knowledge of that much history, additional to your regular studies.”

“Oh, agreed to that!” said Rob; while John and Jesse began to drop their books and eagerly come closer to their older guide and companion.

“What’ll we need to take?” asked John. “We can’t live on the country as we did up North.”

“Cut it light, young men. One week’s grub at a time, say. The little tent, with a wall, and the poles along—we can spread it on the boat if we like.”

“Not the mosquito tent?” asked Jesse.

“No, not after the seasoning you chaps have had in the North. Some mosquitoes, but not so many for us old-timers. Take bars, no head nets. We’re not tenderfeet, you see.”

“A blanket, a quilt, and an eiderdown quilt each?” suggested John.

“You’ll not! Did Lewis and Clark have eiderdown?”

“No, but they had buffalo robes!”

“And so have we!” Uncle Dick laughed aloud in triumph. “I found three in an old fur trader’s loft here, and—well, I bought them. He’d forgotten he had them—forty years and more. A blanket and a quilt and a robe each, or Jesse and John to divide the biggest robe—and there we are!”

“A tarp to go over all,” said Rob.

“Yes. And our regular mess kit. And the usual wool scout clothes and good shoes and soft hat. That’s about all. Two trout rods, for the mountains. One shotgun for luck, and one .22 rifle—no more. It’ll make a load, but Jesse’s river ship will carry it. Nasty and noisy, but nice, eh?”

“It’ll be fine!” said Jesse. “Of course, we take our maps and books and papers, in a valise?”

“Yes. I’ll have a copy of the original Journal.”

“And we’ll always know where we are?” sid John. “That is,” he added, “where they were?”

“Yes,” said Uncle Dick, reverently enough. “As near as we can figure on the face of a country so changed. And we’ll try to put in all the things they saw, try to understand what the country must have been at that time? Is that agreed?”

Each boy came up and stood at attention. Each gave the Boy Scout’s salute. Uncle Dick noted with a grim smile the full, snappy, military salute of the American Army which Rob now gave him. He returned it gravely and courteously, as an officer does.

CHAPTER III “ADVENTURER, OF AMERICA”

It was on a morning in early spring that our four adventurers found themselves at the side of their boat, which rested on the bank of the great Missouri River, not far above its mouth. Their little tent stood, ready for striking, and all their preparations for the start now were made. Rob stood with a paint pot and brush in hand, at the bow of the boat.

“She’s dry, all right, by now, I think,” said he. “If we put a name on the stern board the paint could dry without being touched. What shall we christen her?”

“Call her ‘Liberty,’” suggested Jesse, “or, say, ‘America.’”

“Fine, but too usual. Give us a name, John.”

“Well, I say, ‘Columbia,’ because we are headed for the Columbia, the same as Lewis and Clark.”

“Too matter-of-fact! Give us a jollier name.”

“Well, give us one yourself, Rob,” said Uncle Dick, “since you’re so particular.”

“All right! How’d ‘Adventurer, of St. Louis,’ do?”

“Not so bad—not so bad. But to Lewis and Clark, St. Louis was only one point of their journey, important as it was.”

“I’ll tell you,” broke in Jesse, the youngest. “Call her ‘Adventurer, of America.’ You can paint it all on, if you use small letters for part, like the steamboats.”

“That’s the name!” said Rob. “Because that was a great adventure that Lewis and Clark were taking on; and it was all for America—then and now. Hard to live up to. But, you see, we’re only following.”

“What do you say, Uncle Dick?” asked John.

“I like it,” replied the latter. “It will do, so paint it on, Rob; and all of you be careful not to smudge it. It’ll be dry by to-morrow morning, for this fantail rides high above the motors.

“Finish drying and packing the dishes now, and let’s be off when Rob gets done. We’re exactly one hundred and eighteen years to a day and an hour after the boats of Lewis and Clark at this very place—only, Lewis went across by land to St. Charles, and saved a little of his time by meeting the boats there.”

“And that was the real start, wasn’t it, Uncle Dick?” demanded Frank.

“In a way, yes. But over yonder, across the Mississippi, on the river Du Bois, in the American Bottoms, Will Clark had built the cabins for the men’s winter quarters. And long before that, Meriwether Lewis had left Washington after saying good-by