in which their camp was
pitched. "We can get a few dead limbs," he said, "but, wet as things are
now, we'd only smoke the stuff and not dry it much."

"Wait for the sun," advised John. And this they found it wise to do, not
leaving the island until nearly noon.

"Morale pretty good!" said Uncle Dick. "John, set down, 'Men in verry
high sperrits.' And off we go!"

They chugged up directly to the point, as nearly as they could
determine, where they had met the disaster of the previous day. "Keep
leading a horse up to a newspaper and he'll quit shying at it," said
Uncle Dick. "Find the very spot where we struck."

"There she is!" exclaimed Rob, presently. The boat stuck again and began
to swing. But this time the setting pole held her bow firm, and, since
there was no wind, a strong shove pushed her free without anyone getting
overboard. They went on after that with greater confidence than ever,
and Jesse began to sing the old canoe song of the voyagers, "_En roulant
ma boule, roulant!_"

They paused at none of the cities and towns now, and only set down the
rivers and main features, as they continued their steady journey day
after day for all of a week. At the end of that time the increasing
shallowness of the river, the many sand bars and the nature of the
discolored, rolling waters, made them sure they were approaching the
mouth of the great Platte River, which, as they knew, rose far to the
west in the Rocky Mountains.

Here they went into a camp and rested for almost a day, bringing up
their field notes and maps and getting a good idea of the country by
comparing their records with the old journals of the great expedition.

"Bear in mind that, after all, they were not the first," said Uncle
Dick. "They had picked up old Dorion, their interpreter, from a canoe
away down in Missouri, and brought him back up to help them with the
Sioux, where he had lived. Their bowman Cruzatte and several other
Frenchmen had spent two years up in here, at the mouth of the Loup.
There were a lot of cabins, Indian trading camps, one of them fifty
years old, along this part of the river.

"But when they got up this far, they were coming into the Plains. New
animals now, before so very long. They really were explorers, for there
were no records to help them."

"You say they found new animals now," Rob began. "You mean elk,
buffalo?"

"Yes. No antelope yet."

"They made the Loup by July 9th, above the Nodaway," said John, his