on, Uncle Dick!" urged Jess. "You've not allowed us to read
ahead that far. You said you'd rather we wouldn't. Tell us, now."

"No. Fold up your maps and close your journals for a while, here at our
last camp on the greatest trail a river ever laid.

"We're going fishing now, fellows--to-morrow we start east, gaining two
years on Lewis and Clark. When we get down near the Yellowstone and
Great Falls country again, going east ourselves, we'll just finish up
the story of the map till we reach the Mandans--which is where we left
our own good ship _Adventurer_.

"To-morrow we head south, the other way. 'This story is to be continued
in our next,' as the story papers say.

"Good night. Keep all this in your heads. It is a great story of great
men in a great valley, doing the first exploring of the greatest country
in the world--the land that is drained by the Missouri and its streams!

"Good luck, old tops!" he added, as he rose and stepped to the edge of
the circle of light, waving his hand to the Divide above them. He stood
looking toward the west.

"Whom are you speaking to, Uncle Dick?" asked John, as he heard no
answer.

"I was just speaking to my friends, Captain Meriwether Lewis and Captain
William Clark. Didn't you see them pass our camp just now?"

CHAPTER XXVII

THE UTMOST SOURCE

The young Alaskans, who had followed faithfully the travels of Lewis and
Clark from the mouth of the Missouri to the Continental Divide, now felt
exultation that they had finished their book work so soon. But they felt
also a greater interest in the thought that they now might follow out a
part of the great waterway which not even Lewis and Clark ever had seen.
They were all eagerness to be off. The question was, what would be the
best route and what would be the transportation?

"We still can spare a month in the West," said Uncle Dick, "and get back
to St. Louis in time to catch the fall school term. That will give us
time for a little sport. How shall we get down south, two hundred miles,
and back to the Three Forks? What do you say, Billy?"

"Well, sir," answered the young ranchman, "we've got more help than
Lewis and Clark had. We can use the telegraph, the telephone, the
railway cars, and the motor car--besides old Sleepy and Nigger and the
riding horses. We can get about anywhere you like, in as much or little
time as you like. If you leave it to me, I'd say, get a man at Dillon or
Grayling--I've friends in bo