ither, if I hadn't been
reading my Lewis and Clark _Journal_ all over again. They speak of that
very thing. Oh, this is a bad old river, all right. Those men had a hard
time."

"But, sir," answered Rob, "if we load too far down by the bow, our stern
motors won't take hold so well. We've got to bury them."

"That's true, their weight throws the bow very high. I doubt if we can
do much better than have an even keel, but if she'll kick all right,
keep her down all you can in front, for if we ever do ride a log, we'll
strip off the propellers, and maybe the end of the boat, too. Better be
safe than sorry, always."

"They didn't have as good a boat as ours, did they?" John spoke with a
good deal of pride as he cast an eye over the long, racy hull of the
_Adventurer_, whose model was one evolved for easy travel upstream under
oars.

"Well, no, but still they got along, in those days, after their own
fashion. You see, they started out with three boats. First was a big
keel boat, fifty-five feet long, with twenty-two oars and a big square
sail. She drew three feet of water, loaded, and had a ten-foot deck
forward, with lockers midship, which they could stack up for a
breastworks against Indian attacks, if they had to. Oh, she was quite a
ship, all right.

"Then they had a large red perogue--must have been something like ours,
a rangy river skiff, built of boards; certainly not like the little
cypress dugouts they call 'peewoogs' in Louisiana.

"Now they had a third boat, the 'white peroque,' they spell it. It was
smaller, carrying six oars. The red skiff carried the eight French
_voyageurs_----"

"We ought to have all their names, those fellows," said Frank.

"Well, write them down--I've got the _Journal_ handy. Here Captain Clark
gives them, as they were set into squads, May 26th, far up the river.
You see, they were a military party--there were twenty-nine on the
official rolls as volunteers, not mentioning Captains Lewis and Clark,
or York, Captain Clark's negro body servant, who all traveled on the big
boat:

"'Orderly Book: Lewis.

Detachment Orders
_May 26th, 1804._

The Commanding Officers Direct, that the three Squads under the
command of Sergt{s.} Floyd, Ordway and Pryor, heretofore forming
two messes each, shall untill further orders constitute three
messes only, the same being altered and organized as follows (viz:)

Ser