en he dodged the mosquitoes he
ran into white bears. There was something doing every minute in those
days.

"They seemed to have had a trustful way of hoping everything would come
out all right, those fellows. Clark did not know where Lewis was, or
Ordway, or Gass, or where Pryor and his men were. Well, the Pryor party
didn't catch up with Clark until August 8th--and they didn't have a
horse to their name!

"You see, three days after they left Clark, near where Billings is, the
Indians jumped them once more and stole their last horse. They took a
lesson from the Indians and made two bull boats, round ones like the
Mandans used. I don't suppose they liked that kind of traveling, but
they had to do it. Anyhow, it worked, and hard as it is to believe, they
made their way downstream without any serious accident.

"I don't know whether you call all of this good traveling as much as it
was good luck, but anyhow they were beginning to pick up their friends.
Just look on the map and see how far it is from the mouth of the Big
Horn River up across to the mouth of Two Medicine Creek--that's how far
Clark and Lewis were apart, and they had been apart for considerable
over a month. Lewis might have been killed and no one could have known
it had happened, and so might Clark.

"Now they met a couple of white men who were pushing up the river,
intending to hunt up the Yellowstone. Colter and his pal go along up the
river a little ways, too.

"And now you pick up the Lewis story. Lewis goes down in his boat,
crippled. Colter and the other man and the two traders turn back; and
pretty soon, on August 12th, they come on Clark's party landed on the
shore of the Missouri; fighting mosquitoes!

"Well, it only took them a couple of days from that time to get to the
Mandan villages."

"That's where we left our boat, the _Adventurer_!" exclaimed Jesse. "Now
what do you say, boys--hasn't this been one exciting finish?"

"But you haven't told us yet, Uncle Dick, what we are going to do," said
Rob.

"I'll tell you what to do now," said Uncle Dick. "Go to bed, all of you.
In the morning we will make our plans at the breakfast table."

CHAPTER XXXIII

HOMEWARD BOUND

They met at the breakfast table where Billy, who kept a bachelor home,
had busied himself preparing a final good meal for them. They had
abundance of nicely browned trout with fresh eggs, milk, and good bread.

The young travelers ate in silence, with the prese