rt to
Mandan--I make it about fifteen hundred and fifty, with such figures as
I find set down. The River Commission call it fourteen hundred and
fifty-two. Give us fifty miles a day for thirty days, and that would be
fifteen hundred miles--why, we're a couple of hundred miles beyond
Mandan right now--on paper!

"But I never saw anything that ran by gas that didn't get its back up
sometimes. Suppose we allow a month to get up to Mandan--bringing us
there by June 22d--call it June 30th. How'd that do? Do you think we can
make it--say forty-odd miles a day--or even thirty?"

"Sure we can!" said Jesse, stoutly.

"Yes--on paper!" repeated Uncle Dick. "Well, there's many a sand bar
between here and Mandan, and many a long mile. Lewis and Clark did not
get there until October 26th--four months from here. If we allow
ourselves one month, we'll only have to go four or five times as fast as
they did. I've known a flat bottom 'John boat' do forty miles a day on
the Current River of Missouri with only one outboard motor; and that's a
six-mile current, good and stiff. Let us not count our chickens just
yet, but keep on plugging. I must say Rob is a wizard with the engines,
this far, at least.

"And now, if we're done with the arithmetic----"

"We're not," interrupted Jesse. "I've set down the fish I've caught this
far, and it's three wall-eyes and twelve catfish. That's fifteen head of
game against their thirty, about!"

"Oh! And you want to know, if a boy of your size could catch fifteen
head of fish in eight days, how many could we all catch in thirty days?
That's getting out of my depth, Jesse! I don't know, but I hope that the
gasoline and the catfish both hold out, for they are our main staffs of
life just now."

They ran up the left bluff of the river, mile after mile, under the edge
of the great town whose chimneys belched black smoke, noting railway
train after train, their own impudent little motors making as much
noise as the next along the water front. Many a head was turned to catch
sight of their curious twin-screw craft, with the flag at its bow, and
on the stern the name _Adventurer, of America_, but Rob paid no
attention to this, holding her stiff into the current and heading in
answer to Uncle Dick's signals.

At last they lay alongside a little landing to which a houseboat was
moored, occupied by a riverman whom Uncle Dick seemed to know.

"How do you do, Johnson," said he, as the man poked his head out