not a
Frenchman. But they always spoke of the voyagers as 'the French.'
Anyhow, there's the list of May 26, 1804."

"Maybe they lost a man overboard somewhere," suggested John.

"Not yet. They had a deserter or two, but that was farther up the river,
and they caught one of these and gave him a good military trimming and
expulsion, as we'll see later. But this I suppose we may call the actual
party that found our Great West for us. They are the Company of
Volunteers for Northwestern Discovery."

The three boys looked half in awe as they read over the names of these
forgotten men.

"Yes. So there they were," resumed Uncle Dick, gravely. "And here in the
_Journal_ the very first sentence says the party was 'composed of
robust, healthy, hardy young men.' Well, that's the sort I've got along
with me, what?"

"But Uncle Dick--Uncle Dick--" broke in Jesse, excitedly, "your book is
all wrong! Just look at the way the spelling is! It's awful. It wasn't
that way in the copies we had."

"That's because this is a real and exact copy of what they really did
write down," said Uncle Dick. "Yours must have been one of the rewritten
and much-edited volumes. To my mind, that's a crime. Here's the real
thing.

"Listen!" he added, suddenly, holding the volume close to him. "Would
you like to know something about those two young chaps, Meriwether Lewis
and William Clark, and what became of their _Journals_ after they got
home? You'd hardly believe it."

"Tell us," said Rob.

Uncle Dick opened his book on his knee, as they all sat on the rail of
the _Adventurer_.

"They were soldiers, both of them, fighting men. Lewis had some
education, and his mind was very keen. He was the private secretary of
President Thomas Jefferson, but Jefferson says he was not 'regularly
educated.' He studied some months in astronomy and other scientific
lines, under Mr. Andrew Ellicott, of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with the
special purpose of fitting himself to lead this expedition. Mr. Ellicott
had experience in astronomical observation, and practice of it in the
woods, the record says.

"Lewis was better educated than Clark, who was four years the
older--thirty-three--while Lewis was twenty-nine. He spells better
than Clark, who is about as funny as Josh Billings, though he
certainly spelled his best. Of one thing you can be sure, whenever
you see anything of the _Journal_ spelled correctly, it is false and
spurious--that's not the original, for