to head for, Billy, for a sort of central
camp? I don't think we can do more than go to the summit, this trip.
What do you say?"

"Well, sir, I'd say the Shoshoni Cove, where they left their canoes and
took horses, would be about the most central point for that. That'll
bring us to the last forks--what they call the Two Forks."

"But how about the Beaverhead Rock?"

"We ought to see that," said Rob, at the time. "That's as famous as a
landmark as almost anything on the whole river."

"We can get in there easy enough and get out," said Billy. "It's just a
question of time on the trail. Taking it easy, give us a week, ten days,
on the way to the Cove, taking in the Rock for one camp. It's not half
as far by land as it is by water."

"What do you say, boys? Shall we travel by rail or pack train now?"

With one shout they all voted for the pack train. "We couldn't get along
without Billy now, anyhow," said Jesse, "because he knows the _Journal_
as well as we do, and he knows the country better."

"Thank you, son. Well, I guess old Sleepy won't die before we get there,
though he pretends he can hardly go. Say we get back into the side
creeks a little and pick up a mess of fish now and then, and make the
Beaverhead a couple of camps later? How'd that be?"

"That's all right, I think," said Rob. "I'd like to get a look at the
main river, to see why the names change on it so. First it's the main
Missouri; then they conclude to call it the Jefferson--only because the
other two forks spread so wide there. Then it runs along all right, and
all at once they call it the Beaverhead. And before it gets used to that
name they change it to Red River for no reason at all, or because it
heads south and runs near a painted butte. Yet it is one continuous
river all the way."

"The real way to name a river," said Billy, sagely, "is after you know
all about it. You got to remember that Lewis and Clark saw this for the
first time. By the time we make the Beaverhead Rock, we'll be willing to
say they had a hard job. People could get lost in these hills even now,
if they stepped off the road."

"All set for the Beaverhead Rock!" said Uncle Dick, decisively.

Soon they had settled to their steady jog, Nigger sometimes getting lost
in the willows, and Sleepy straying off in his hunt for thistles when
the country opened out more. They did not hurry, but moved along among
the meadows and fields, talking, laughing, studying the wide and