“I didn’t know that deer liked willow leaves,” said John.

“I didn’t, either, but here it is. And that was June 26th, when the grass was up. I’ve even known some naturalists to say that deer don’t eat grass. We know they do.

“But 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 Prairies and the Plains came big river valleys that led out West toward the Rockies. If all that had been hills and timber, no road ever would have got through. It was the big waterways that made the roads into all the wilderness; we certainly learned that up in the Far North, didn’t we?

“So here was their crossroads of the waters, at old Independence, which now is Kansas City. Not much here, but a natural place for the Gate to the West.

“Clark had a good real-estate eye. He says:

“He couldn’t spell much, or put in his punctuation marks, but he certainly had a practical eye. And I reckon the first beginnings of the city were right then, for the Journal says, ‘Completed a strong redoubt or brestwork from one side to the other, of logs and Bushes Six feet high.’ Yes, I suppose that was the first white building here at the Gate.

“It’s pretty hard to find any new part of the world to-day. Yonder runs the Kaw, leading to the Santa Fe Trail—and I’ll bet there’s a thousand motor cars going west right now, a hundred times as many cars each day as there used to be wagons in a year!”

He closed his book for the time. “Maybe that’s what Uncle Dick wanted us to get in our heads!” said he.

“Some country!” said Jesse; and both John and Rob agreed.

When their leader returned a little later in the evening, the boys told him what they had been doing.

“Fine!” he said. “Fine! Well, I’ve just telegraphed home that we’re all right and that we’re off for the Platte to-morrow, early.”

“That’s another old road to the Rockies,” said Rob.

“One of the greatest—the very greatest, when you leave out boat travel. The Platte Valley led out the men with plows on their wagons, the home makers who stayed West. You see, our young leaders were only pathfinders, not home makers.”

“And a jolly good job they had!” said Jesse.

“Yes, and jolly well they did the job, son, as you’ll see more and more.”

John was running a finger over the crude map which he and Jesse had been making from day to day. “Hah!” said he. “Here’s the big Platte Valley coming in, but no big city at the mouth.”

“Oh yes, there is,” corrected Uncle Dick. “Omaha and Council Bluffs you can call the same as at the mouth of the Platte, for they serve that valley with a new kind of transportation, that of steam, which did not have to stick to the watercourse, but took shorter cuts.

“It’s odd, but our explorers seem even then to have heard of a road to Santa Fe. They also say the Kansas River is described as heading ‘with the river Del Noird in the black Mountain or ridge which Divides the Waters of the Kansas, Del Nord, & Collarado.’ No doubt the early French or the Indians confused the Kaw with the Arkansas.

“Enough! Taps, Sergeant! To bed, all of you,” he concluded; and they were willing to turn in.

In the morning early they were at the dock, and were greeted by Johnson, who, sure enough, had the gasoline cans filled and most of the heavy supplies aboard. By eight-thirty they were chugging away again up the water front of the city, their Flag flying, so that many thought it was a government boat of some sort.

Jesse tried to write in his notebook, but did not make much of a success, owing to the trembling of the boat under the double power.

“He always says ‘we set out and proceeded on,’” Jesse explained. “I was trying to write how the expedition left the mouth of the Kansas River.”

“Look out for ‘emence numbers of Deer on the banks,’ now,” sung out John, who had the Journal on a box top near by. “‘They are Skipping in every derection. The party killed 9 Bucks to-day!’”

“But no buffalo yet,” said Rob.

“No, not till we get up around Council Bluffs—then we’ll begin to get among them.”

“And by to-morrow afternoon we’ll be where they celebrated their first Fourth of July. It was along in here. They celebrated the day by doing fifteen miles—closing the day by another ‘Descharge from our Bow piece’ and an extra ‘Gill of Whiskey.’ I don’t call that much of a Fourth!” John seemed disgusted.

“Well, maybe the soldiers didn’t, for they had ‘Tumers & Felons & the Musquiters were verry bad,’” he went on. “I don’t think their grub list was right—too much meat and salt stuff. But from now on they certainly did get plenty of game—all kinds of it, bears, deer, elk, beaver, venison, buffalo, turkeys, geese, grouse, and fish. You see, Jesse, they got some of those ‘white catfish’ like the last one you caught—a ‘channel cat,’ I suppose we’d call it. And they ate wild fruit along shore. I think the hunters had better chance than the oarsmen.

“They saw elk sign not far above the Kansas River, but I don’t think they got any elk till August 1st. Above there they got into the antelope, which they called ‘goat,’ and described very carefully. They sent President Jefferson the first antelope ever seen east of the Alleghanies. Then they got into the bighorn sheep, which also were altogether new, and the grizzly bear, which they called the ‘white bear.’ Oh, they had fun enough from here on north!”

“Yes, and did their work besides, and a lot of it,” affirmed Uncle Dick. “But while we are comparing notes we might just as well remember they had some bad storms. I don’t like the look of that bank of clouds.”

They all noted the heavy ridges of black clouds to the west. The wind changed, coming down the river in squalls which tore up the surface of the water and threw the bow of the boat off its course.

“Steady, Rob! Slow down!” called out Uncle Dick, who had begun to pull the tarpaulin over the cargo. “I can’t judge the water in this wind. Look out, all!”

Suddenly there came a jolt and a jar which drove them from their seats. The propellers had struck a sand bar and plowed into it. Caught by the wind, the bow of the boat swung around into the current. Careening, the lower rail went under and the water came pouring in.

CHAPTER IX

The boat was filling fast, and the great weight of the outboard motors buried her stern, so she was about to swamp in midstream. Uncle Dick in horror saw the set faces of two of his young friends at the rail beyond him, their legs under the boat, which was swinging on them, their terror showing in their eyes. He made one grasp across the boat, and luckily caught Jesse’s hand. Their combined weight held the boat down by the bow, and she swung downstream, half full but not sinking.

“Swim for it, John, as soon as we reach the island!”

The voice of Uncle Dick rose high and clear. A willow-clad island lay below, toward which the boat now was setting. He knew the boys all could swim, and they were all lightly dressed, with canvas sneakers and no coat.

“All right!” replied John, confidently, now getting his legs free. “I can make it.” Indeed, it did not seem the boat could carry another pound. Rob was swimming on the upstream side, one hand on the stern. Keeping low in the water, they floated on down in the black squall of wind and rain which now came on them. Their course downstream was very rapid.

“Now, John!” Uncle Dick gave the word, and John, without one instant’s hesitation, struck out for the island, now not over forty yards away over the choppy, rain-whipped water. His head was seen bobbing over the waves, but gaining distance. Uncle Dick hardly breathed as he watched.

The boat was lightened a little. Rob took a chance, climbed in over the stern, and, catching up a setting pole, began to reach for bottom on the upstream side. He caught it and, putting in all his strength, swung the bow across stream, repeating again and again, until the boat was not far back of John’s bobbing head. Then all at once Uncle Dick gave a shout. His feet had struck bottom on the shelving sand once more. Between them they now could guide and drag the boat till they made a landing, with Jesse on top the cargo, only about fifty yards below where John was headed. They saw him scramble up the bank, lie for an instant half exhausted, and then come running down the shore to them. They all dragged at the water-logged boat until they had her ashore so she would hold.

“And that’s that!” panted John, coolly and slangily enough.

Till then no one had spoken. Uncle Dick couldn’t speak at first. He only drew Jesse and John to him, one to each arm, wet as they all were, and in the rain now pouring down. “Fine, boys!” said he.

“The closest squeak we’ve ever had,” said Rob, at last. “Right here in the settlements! There’s the city of Leavenworth just around the bend.”

“Close enough!” said Uncle Dick. “And my compliments to you all, every one. If it had been a lot of chaps less cool and ready, we’d none of us have been saved. Rob, who taught you to paddle on the up side when crossing a current?”

“I learned it of Moise Richard, on the Peace River, sir,” replied Rob.

“Right! Most people try to hold her nose against the current by working on the lower side. Upstream is right—and I must say the setting pole saved the day. But, John, you’ll never know how I dreaded to tell you to cast free and swim for it. I thought it was safest for you.”

“Oh, that’s nothing,” said John. But at the same time he was very proud of his feat.

They were wet to the skin and the rain was cold, their boat was full of water and their stores wet. At last, surely, they had an adventure on their hands. But they were not downhearted over it at all.

“All hands lay to for camp!” called Uncle Dick.

They began to unload the heavier stuff, so they could cant the boat and spill the bilge water out of her. The tarpaulin was thrown over some willow bushes for a shelter, and under this they piled their grub boxes and dunnage rolls. The beds were all in watertight canvas bags, and so were their spare clothes, so matters might have been worse. The guns could be dried, and the tarpaulin had kept the lighter articles from washing away. In a little while they got the tent up, and then they folded the wet tarpaulin for a floor and hurried their outfit inside, damp but yet not ruined.

“Get some boughs to put inside,” suggested their leader. “Get out that little forced-draught oil stove and let’s see if we can dry out. It’s going to be hard to get a fire on this island in this rain, for there’s nothing but willows. They’re wet. Get the little stove going and pull shut the flaps. When it gets a little warmer we’ll open the bags and change our clothes. And as John would say, that’ll be that! But it’s only by mercy that we’re here. You are right, Rob, this is the most serious accident we have ever had together.”

“Let’s open a can of soup, and issue an extra gill of tea,” said Rob.

They broke into a roar of laughter. Inside of half an hour the little hut was steaming and they all were sitting on boxes eating their evening meal. The storm, which had culminated in a fierce thunder gust, now was muttering itself away.

Jesse went out and brought in the Flag from its staff on the boat. “We’ll have to dry her,” he said. “She’s silk, and fast colors.”

“And I think my expeditionary force is all true blue!” added Uncle Dick, quietly.

In the night Jesse waked them all by suddenly crying out in a nightmare. Rob shook him awake.

“What’s wrong, old top?” he asked.

“I guess I was scared,” admitted Jesse, frankly, and pulled the covers over his head.

CHAPTER X

They chugged up directly to the point, as nearly as they could determine, where they had met the disaster of the previous day. “Keep leading a horse up to a newspaper and he’ll quit shying at it,” said Uncle Dick. “Find the very spot where we struck.”

“There she is!” exclaimed Rob, presently. The boat stuck again and began to swing. But this time the setting pole held her bow firm, and, since there was no wind, a strong shove pushed her free without anyone getting overboard. They went on after that with greater confidence than ever, and Jesse began to sing the old canoe song of the voyagers, “En roulant ma boule, roulant!”

They paused at none of the cities and towns now, and only set down the rivers and main features, as they continued their steady journey day after day for all of a week. At the end of that time the increasing shallowness of the river, the many sand bars and the nature of the discolored, rolling waters, made them sure they were approaching the mouth of the great Platte River, which, as they knew, rose far to the west in the Rocky Mountains.

Here they went into a camp and rested for almost a day, bringing up their field notes and maps and getting a good idea of the country by comparing their records with the old journals of the great expedition.

“Bear in mind that, after all, they were not the first,” said Uncle Dick. “They had picked up old Dorion, their interpreter, from a canoe away down in Missouri, and brought him back up to help them with the Sioux, where he had lived. Their bowman Cruzatte and several other Frenchmen had spent two years up in here, at the mouth of the Loup. There were a lot of cabins, Indian trading camps, one of them fifty years old, along this part of the river.

“But when they got up this far, they were coming into the Plains. New animals now, before so very long. They really were explorers, for there were no records to help them.”

“You say they found new animals now,” Rob began. “You mean elk, buffalo?”

“Yes. No antelope yet.”

“They made the Loup by July 9th, above the Nodaway,” said John, his finger in the Journal. “Two days later they got into game all right, for Drewyer killed six deer that day himself, and another killed one, so they had meat in camp.

“They made the Nemaha by July 14th, and I think that was almost the first time they got sight of elk. Clark fired at one that day, but didn’t get him. That was where he first wrote his name and date on a rock—he says the rock ‘jucted out over the water.’ I think that was near the mouth, on the banks of the Nishnabotna River, but I don’t suppose a fellow could find it now, do you?”

“No. It never has been reported, like the two Boone signatures in Kentucky,” replied Uncle Dick. “He only wrote his name twice—once up in Montana. But now, think how this new sort of country struck them. Patrick Gass says, ‘This is the most open country I ever saw, almost one continued prairie.’ What are you writing down, Jesse?”

“‘Musquitors verry troublesome,’” grinned Jesse, watching a big one on his wrist. “I’ll bet they were awful.”

“And the men all had ‘tumers and boils,’ in spite of their ‘verry high sperrits,’” broke in John, from the Journal. “And they gave Alexander Willard a hundred lashes and expelled him from the enlisted roll, for sleeping on sentinel post—which he had coming to him. But all the same, the Journal says that this party was healthier than any party of like size ‘in any other Situation.’ His main worry was these pesky ‘musquitors.’ He killed a deer, but they were so bad he found it ‘Painfull to continue a Moment Still’!

“Here’s something for you, Jesse!” he added, laughing. “One day in a ‘fiew minits Cought 3 verry large Cat fish, one nearly white, a quort of Oile came out of the Surpolous fat of one of those fish.’ And all the time they are mentioning turkeys and geese and beaver—isn’t it funny that all those creatures then lived in the same place? On August 2d, Drewyer and Colter, two of the hunters, brought in the horses loaded with elk meat. But that was just above the Platte, nearer Council Bluffs.”

“One thing don’t forget,” said Uncle Dick at this time. “All that hunting was incidental to those men. About the biggest part of their business was to get in touch with the Indian tribes and make friends with them. You’ll see, they stuck around the mouth of the Platte quite a while, sending out word, to get the Indians in. The same day Drewyer and Colter got the elk the men brought in a ‘Mr. Fairfong,’ an interpreter, who had some Otoes and Missouri Indians. Then there were presents and speeches, and they hung some D.S.O. medals on a half dozen of the chiefs and told them to be good, or the Great Father at Washington would get them.

“Well, that’s all right. But what I want you to notice is the camp at Council Bluffs. That wasn’t where the city of Council Bluffs, Iowa, is, but on the opposite side of the river, about twenty-five miles above Omaha—not far from Fort Calhoun. There was no Omaha then. I can remember my own self when Omaha was young. I used to shoot quail on the Elkhorn and the Papilion Creek, just above Omaha, and grand sport there was for quail and grouse and ducks all through that country then.

“But Lewis and Clark had a wide eye. They knew natural points of advantage, and they must have foreseen what the Platte Valley was going to mean before long. They say that Council Bluffs was ‘a verry proper place for a Tradeing Establishment and fortification.’ Trust them to know the ‘verry proper places’! Only, what I can’t understand is the note that it is ‘twenty-five days from this to Santafee.’ That’s a puzzler. The natural place of departure for Santa Fe was where Kansas City is, not Omaha. But, surely, they had heard of it, somehow.”

“Well,” said Rob, “we’re doing pretty well, pretty well. In spite of delays, we’re at the mouth of the Platte, sixteen days out, and they didn’t get there till July 21st. I figure three hundred and sixty-six miles to Kansas City, and two hundred and sixty-six miles to here, say six hundred and thirty-two miles for sixteen days—the river chart says six hundred and thirty-five miles. That keeps us pretty close to our average we set—over forty miles a day. We’ve got to boost that, though.

“Are we going to stop at Omaha, sir?” he added, rather anxiously.

“Not on anybody’s life!” rejoined Uncle Dick. “Nice place, but we’re a day late. No, sir, we’ll skip through without even a salute to the tribes from our bow piece. We’ve got to get up among the Sioux. Dorion has been talking all the time about the Sioux. So good-by for the present to the Platte tribes, the Pawnees, Missouris, and Otoes.”

“Gee! I’d like to shoot something,” said Jesse, wistfully. “Just reading about things, now!”

“Forget it for a while, Jess,” smiled his uncle. “Just remember that we’re under the eaves of two great cities, here at Plattsmouth. Take comfort in the elk and beaver sign you can imagine in the sand, here at the mouth of this river. It still is six hundred yards wide, with its current ‘verry rapid roleing over Sands.’

“Two voyagers of the Lewis and Clark expedition had wintered here before that time, trapping—the beaver were so thick. Imagine yourself not far up the river and shooting at an elk four times, as Will Clark did—then not getting him. Imagine yourself along with that summer fishing party along this little old river, and getting upward of eight hundred fish, seventy-nine pike, and four hundred and ninety cats; and again three hundred and eighteen ‘silver fish’—I wonder, now, if that really could have been the croppy? Lord! boy—what a time they had, strolling, hunting, fishing, exploring new lands, visiting Indians, having the time of their lives!”

“Let’s be off,” suggested Rob. And soon they were plugging along up the great river, threading their way among the countless bars and shoals.

“I can see the full boats coming down the Platte!” said Jesse, shading his eyes, “hide canoes, full of beaver bales, that float light! And there are the voyageurs, all with whiskers and long rifles and knives.”

“Yes,” said Uncle Dick, gravely. “And here are our men, tall, in uniform coats and buckskin leggings. See now”—and he reached for John’s volume—“they let off the deserter, Moses Reed, very light. He only had to run the gantlet of the entire party four times—each man with nine switches—and get dropped from the rolls of the Volunteers!

“And here is where Captain Lewis, experimenting with some strange water he had found—with some cobalt and ‘isonglass’ in it—got very ill from it. His friend Clark says ‘Copperas and Alum is verry pisen.’”

“But when did they first find the buffalo?” demanded Jesse, fingering once more the little rifle which always lay near him in the boat. “Gee! now, I’d like to kill a buffalo!”

“All in due time, all in due time, Jess!” his leader replied. “My, but you are bloodthirsty! Wait now till August 23d, above Sioux City. You are Captain William Clark, with your elk-hide notebook inside your shirt front, and you have gone ashore and have killed a fat buck. And when you get back to the boat J. Fields comes in and says he has killed a buffalo, in the plain ahead; and Lewis takes twelve men and has the buffalo brought to the boat at the next bend; so you just make no fuss over that first buffalo, and set it down in your elk-hide book. And that same day two elk swam across the river ahead of the boat. And that same evening R. Field brought in two deer on a horse, and another deer was shot from the boat; and they all saw elk standing on a sand bar, and several prairie wolves. And the very next day, don’t you remember, you saw great herds of buffalo? Oh, now you’re in the Plains! Everybody now is ‘jurking meat.’ What more do you want, son?”

“Aw, now!” said Jesse. “Well, anyway, we’re about in town.”

CHAPTER XI

“She’s running fine,” Rob went on. “Somehow I think this must be better water, above the Platte. You know, Lewis and Clark only averaged nine miles a day, but along in here for over two hundred miles they were beating that, doing seventeen and one-quarter, twenty and one-quarter, seventeen, twenty-two and one-half, seventeen and one-half, sixteen, seventeen, twenty and one-half, twenty and one-half, fifteen, ten and three-quarters, fifteen, ten—not counting two or three broken days. They seem to have got the hang of the river, somehow.”

“So have we,” nodded the other. “I’ll give you five days to make Sioux City.”

As a matter of fact, the stout little ship Adventurer now began to pick up on her own when they had passed that Iowa city, going into camp on the evening of June 4th well above the town. They purchased bread, poultry, eggs, and butter of a near-by farmer, and opened a jar of marmalade for Jesse, to console him for the lack of buffalo.

“It’s my birthday, too, to-day,” said Jesse. “I was born on the fourth day of June, fourteen years ago. My! it seems an awful long time.”

“Well, Captain Meriwether Lewis was not born on this day,” said his uncle, “but his birthday was celebrated on this spot by his party, on August 18, 1805, and they celebrated it with a dance, and an ‘extra gill of whiskey.’”

“We’ll issue an extra gill of marmalade to the men to-night, and conclude our day of hard travel with a ‘Descharge of the Bow piece,’ just because it’s the Fourth of June. We’re hitting things off in great style now, and I’m beginning to have more confidence in gasoline.”

“What made you want to get to this place, Uncle Dick?” asked John, his own mouth rather full of fried chicken.

“Because of the location—the mouth of the Sioux River, and at the lower edge of the great Sioux nation.

“Lewis and Clark tried to get peace among all these river tribes. They held a big council here, decorating a few more Otoes and Missouris, and telling them to make peace with the Omahas and the Pawnee Loups. The Sioux had not yet been found, though their hunting fires were seen all through here, and Lewis was very anxious to have his interpreter, Dorion, find some Sioux and bring them into council.

“It was at Captain Lewis’s birthday party that the first and only casualty of the trip ensued. You remember Sergeant Floyd—he spelled worse than Clark, and Ordway worse than either—and his journal of some twenty thousand words, which he had kept till now? Well, he danced hard at the birthday party or at the Indian council, and got overheated, after which he lay down on the damp sand and got chilled. It gave him what the Journal calls a ‘Biliose Chorlick,’ and on the second day he died. He was buried on the bluffs below the town, at what still is called Floyd’s Bluff, on the river they named after him, with military honors, and his grave long was known. His river still is known by his name, and it runs right into the town of Sioux City. The river washed the bank away under his grave, and in 1857 the remains were reburied, back from the river. That spot was marked by a slab in 1895, and a monument was put over it in May, 1901. I was a guest at the dedication of that obelisk. It was erected under the supervision of General Hiram Chittenden, the great engineer and great historian. It has a city park all of its own, and a marvelous landscape it commands.

“Well, poor Floyd had no memorial in those rude days, beyond a ‘seeder post.’ They did what they could and then they ‘set out under a gentle Breeze and proceeded on.’”

“Well, but Dorion knew this country, then?” John began again, after a time.

“Yes,” Rob was first to answer, “and that’s what puzzles me—how they got such exact knowledge of a wild region. I suppose it was because they had no railroads and so had to know geography. The Journal says that the Sioux River heads with the St. Peter’s (Minnesota) River, passing the head of the Des Moines; all of which is true. And it tells of the Red Pipestone quarry, on a creek coming into the Sioux. Clark puts down all those things and does not forget the local stuff. He says the ‘Countrey above the Platte has a great Similarity’—which means the Plains as they saw them. And look, in John’s book—here he says ‘I found a verry excellent froot resembling the read Current,’ What was it—the Sarvice berry? He says it is ‘about the Common hight of a wild Plumb.’ Nothing escaped these chaps—geography, natural history, game, Indians, or anything else! They must have worked every minute of the day.”

“I think his new berry was what we used to call the buffalo berry, in our railway surveys out West,” said Uncle Dick. “It was bigger than a currant and made very fair pies.

“But now we’ve just begun to catch up with our story, for we were talking some time back where they first got a buffalo. That was about thirty or forty miles above here. By to-morrow night we’ll camp in our fifth state since we left home—Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota.”

“On our way!” sung out Rob. “We haven’t got any antelope yet, nor found a prairie dog, nor seen a single Sioux.”

“Softly, softly!” smiled the older companion. “At least we’re in the Sioux and antelope range.”

Their little tent was pitched within a short distance of the river, and their fire made shadows along the wall of willows. At times they all fell silent, bringing to mind the wild scenes of this same country in a time which now began to seem not so long ago.

“My!” said Jesse, after a time, as he sat on his bed roll, his hands clasped before his knees. “Think of it! The Plains, the buffalo, the Indians! Weren’t they the lucky guys!”

“Well, yes,” replied his uncle, “though I’d rather call them fortunate gentlemen than lucky guys. One thing sure, they were accurate when they said the ‘musquitors were verry troublesom’ in all this Missouri Valley. They had to issue nets and bars to the men, so it says, and the misquitr, or mosquiter, or musquitor, was about the only ‘anamal’ they feared. If we don’t turn in, they’ll carry us off to-night.”

CHAPTER XII

“I’ll bet I know!” broke in Jesse. “It’s because the shores were more open, so they could use the cordelle! They’d been doing it, too, for on August 26th they made a new ‘Toe line’ out of braided elk-hide. Clark killed an elk on August 25th, and Reuben Fields killed five deer that day, and George Shannon killed an elk that day, too. So they ‘jurked the meet,’ and made the hides into a tracking line. That beats rowing or paddling to get up a river. We saw that on the Peace River and the Mackenzie, didn’t we?”

“I believe you’re right, son!” said Rob. “These long sandy reaches, where the men could trot on the line—that was where they got their mileage, I’ll warrant.”

“George Shannon?” said Uncle Dick, who was listening as he sat on his bed roll near the fire. “George Shannon, eh? Well, he didn’t bring in any more elk meat after that for many a day, that’s sure.”

“I know!” Rob nodded. “That’s the man that got lost!”

“Yes, and trouble enough it gave the party and the leaders. They sent out two men, Shields and J. Fields, to find him and the horses. That was the second day. But they didn’t find him. He didn’t show up for sixteen days. Luckily, he kept on ahead of the boat all the time, but, as we all know, the most confusing way on earth to get lost from a party is while you are on foot and the party is in a boat. Even Sir Alexander Mackenzie got lost that way, on the Findlay River; and so have we all of us.”

“Well, poor Shannon nearly starved to death. I don’t think he was a first-class hunter, either, or he’d not have gone out without his ammunition. In a country swarming with game he went for twelve days with only grapes to eat, except one rabbit that he shot with a piece of stick instead of a bullet. He held on to one horse, and lucky he did. Here’s what the Journal says about Shannon—whom Lewis himself found: