The Young Alaskans on the Missouri - Emerson Hough (best books for students to read TXT) š
- Author: Emerson Hough
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āWhat a funny man!ā snickered Jesse, once more.
āHe didnāt do it to be funny,ā said Rob. āOnce I asked a kid cow puncher to make a horse pitch some more for me, so I could make a photo of it; and he said, āWhy, I didnāt make him pitchāhe just done that hisself.ā Well, I guess thatās how to account for Clarkās spellingāhe ājust done that hisself.āā
Uncle Dick had not been paying much attention to the boys just then, but was watching the smoke clouds ahead. Passing trains whistled loudly and frequently. The shores became more populated.
āTwo miles more and weāll round to full view of Kansas City, young men,ā said he. āWeāve crossed the whole and entire state of Missouri, three hundred and ninety milesāfrom one great city to another great one.
āSt. LouisāKansas City! Each in her day has been the Gate to the West. In 1847, Independence, over to the left, was going back, and even the new boat landing of Westport was within the year to be called Kansas City. Then she was the Gate indeed, and so she has remained through various later sorts of transportation.
āWhen St. Louis laid down the oar and paddle, Kansas City took up the ox whip. When the railroads came, she was sitting on the job.
āYouāve seen one old town site of New Franklin, opposite Boonville, halfway across the state; and now I want you to study this great city here, hardly more than threescore years and ten of ageājust a manās lifetime. Picture this place as it then wasāfull of the ox teams going westāāā
āOh, canāt we go over the Oregon Trail, tooānext year, Uncle Dick?ā broke in John.
āMaybe. Donāt ask me too many questions too far ahead. Now, think back to the time of Lewis and Clarkānot a settlement or a house of a white man above La Charette, and not one here. To them this was just the mouth of the Kansas, or āKansau,ā River, and little enough could they learn about that river. Look at the big bluffs and the trees. And yonder were the Prairies; and back of them the Plains. No one knew them then.
āAs you know, they had been getting more and more game as they approached this place. Now the deer and bears and turkeys fairly thronged. Patrick Gass says, āI never saw so much sign of game in my life,ā and the Journals tell of the abundance of game killedāClark speaks of the deer killed the day they got here, June 26th, and says, āI observed a great number of Parrot quetts this evening.ā That Carolina parrakeet is mentioned almost all the way across Kansas by the Oregon Trail men, and it used to be thick in middle Illinois. All gone nowāgone with many another species of American wild lifeāgone with the bears and turkeys and deer we didnāt see. You couldnāt find a parrakeet at the mouth of the āKanzasā River to-day, unless you bought it in a bird store, thatās sure.
āBut think of the giant trees in here, those daysāsycamores, cottonwoods, as well as oaks and ash and hickories and elms and mulberries and maples. And the grass tall as a manās waist, and āleavel,ā as they called it. Is it any wonder that Will Clark got worked up over some of the views he saw from high points on the river bends? Those, my boys, were the happy daysāoh, I confess, Jesse, many a time Iāve wished Iād been there my own self!ā
āHow do you check up on the distances with Clark? How long did it take them to get this far?ā
āJust forty-three days, sir,ā replied Jesse, the youngest of them all, who also had been keeping count.
āYesāaround seven miles a day! Weāve done seven miles an hour, many a time. Where they took a week weāll take a day, let us say. From here to Mandan, North Dakota, where they wintered, is more than fourteen hundred miles by river, and they took about one hundred and twenty days to itāaveraging only nine and a half or ten miles a day of actual travel in that part of the river. Clark fails once or twice to log the dayās distance. Gass calls it sixteen hundred and ten miles from the start to MandanāI make it about fifteen hundred and fifty, with such figures as I find set down. The River Commission call it fourteen hundred and fifty-two. Give us fifty miles a day for thirty days, and that would be fifteen hundred milesāwhy, weāre a couple of hundred miles beyond Mandan right nowāon paper!
āBut I never saw anything that ran by gas that didnāt get its back up sometimes. Suppose we allow a month to get up to Mandanābringing us there by June 22dācall it June 30th. Howād that do? Do you think we can make itāsay forty-odd miles a dayāor even thirty?ā
āSure we can!ā said Jesse, stoutly.
āYesāon paper!ā repeated Uncle Dick. āWell, thereās many a sand bar between here and Mandan, and many a long mile. Lewis and Clark did not get there until October 26thāfour months from here. If we allow ourselves one month, weāll only have to go four or five times as fast as they did. Iāve known a flat bottom āJohn boatā do forty miles a day on the Current River of Missouri with only one outboard motor; and thatās a six-mile current, good and stiff. Let us not count our chickens just yet, but keep on plugging. I must say Rob is a wizard with the engines, this far, at least.
āAnd now, if weāre done with the arithmeticāāā
āWeāre not,ā interrupted Jesse. āIāve set down the fish Iāve caught this far, and itās three wall-eyes and twelve catfish. Thatās fifteen head of game against their thirty, about!ā
āOh! And you want to know, if a boy of your size could catch fifteen head of fish in eight days, how many could we all catch in thirty days? Thatās getting out of my depth, Jesse! I donāt know, but I hope that the gasoline and the catfish both hold out, for they are our main staffs of life just now.ā
They ran up the left bluff of the river, mile after mile, under the edge of the great town whose chimneys belched black smoke, noting railway train after train, their own impudent little motors making as much noise as the next along the water front. Many a head was turned to catch sight of their curious twin-screw craft, with the flag at its bow, and on the stern the name Adventurer, of America, but Rob paid no attention to this, holding her stiff into the current and heading in answer to Uncle Dickās signals.
At last they lay alongside a little landing to which a houseboat was moored, occupied by a riverman whom Uncle Dick seemed to know.
āHow do you do, Johnson,ā said he, as the man poked his head out of the companionway. āYou see weāre here.ā
āAnd moreān Iād of bet on, at that!ā rejoined the other. āI never expected ye could make it up at all. How long ye beenāa month or so?ā
āA week or so,ā replied Uncle Dick, carelessly, and not showing his pride in the performance of the party. āYou see, weāve got double engines and we travel under forced draught, with the stokers stripped to the waist and doing eight shifts a day.ā
āLike enough, like enough!ā laughed Johnson, not crediting their run. āWell, what kin I do fer ye here?ā
āGet our tanks filled. Unpack our boat and store the stuff on your boat so it canāt be stolen. Overrun our engines and oil her up. Clean out the bilge and make her a sweet ship.ā
āWhen?ā
āTo-day. But weāll not start until to-morrow morning. Iāve got a few friends to see here, and my Company of Volunteers for Northwestern Discovery will like to look around a little. Weāll stop at a hotel to-night. Iām trusting you to have everything ready for us by nine to-morrow morning.ā
āThatās all right,ā replied Johnson. āIāll not fail ye, and Iāll not let anything git losted, neither.ā
āI know that,ā said Uncle Dick. āBy the way, Johnson, which is the best outfitting store in Westport?ā
āAs which, sir?ā
āIn Westport, or say Independence. We could walk down there if we had to. Not so far.ā
Old Johnson scratched his head. āGo on, Colonel, youāre always havinā yer joke. Iām sure I donāt know what ye mean by Indypendence, or Westport. But if you want to get uptown, the street cars is four blocks yan. Er maybe yeād like a taxi?ā
āNo, nothing that goes by gas, for one day, anyhow, Johnson. Well, see to the thingsāthe crew have got the batteau about unloaded, and itās about time for our mess to go ashore to the cook fire. Sergeant McIntyre, issue the lyed corn with the bear and venison stew to-night, and see that my ink horn and traveling desk are at hand!ā
āYes, sir, very good sir!ā returned Rob, gravely. And without a smile the four stalked off up the stair, leaving Johnson to wonder what in the world they meant.
CHAPTER VIII HO! FOR THE PLATTE!Uncle Dick excused himself from the party for a time in the evening, having some business to attend to. He left the three boys in their room at a hotel, declaring they all would rather sleep on the houseboat with Johnson.
āItās mighty quiet on this trip,ā said Jesse.
āNothing happens?ā said Rob, looking up from his maps and the Journal which he had spread on the table. āThatās what the explorers thought when they got here! They wanted to start in killing buffalo, but there were no buffalo so close to the river even then. All our hunters got was deer; they lay here a couple of days and got plenty of deer, and did some tanning and ājurking.ā Clark says they took this chance to compare their āinstrimunts,ā and also they āsuned their powder and wollen articles.ā
āClark killed a deer below here. Drewyer, one of the best hunters, had a fat bear and a deer, too. And Lewis killed a deer next day, so the party was in āfine Sperrits.āā
āOh, so would I be in fine āsperritsā if I could kill a deer or so,ā grumbled Jesse. āNow look at us!ā
āWell,ā went on Rob, ālook at us, then. See here, what Clark says about it:
āāThe Countrey on each Side the river is fine, interspursed with Praries, on which immence herds of Deer is seen. On the banks of the river we observe number of Deer watering and feeding on the young willow, Several killed to-day.... The Praries come within a Short distance of the river on each Side, which contains in addition to Plumbs Raspberries &c., and quantities of wild apples, great numbrs of Deer are seen feeding in the young willows and Earbarge on the Banks and on the Sand bars in the river.āā
āI didnāt know that deer liked willow leaves,ā said John.
āI didnāt, either, but here it is. And that was June 26th, when the grass was up. Iāve even known some naturalists to say that deer donāt eat grass. We know they do.
āBut what we want to get here is the idea that now the expedition was just coming out of the hills and woods into the edge of the Prairies. Across these
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