through which it flowed.
Vast swarms of wild fowl, as at the Cumberland, floated upon its waters
or flew near and showed but little alarm as they passed. When they
wished food it was merely to go a little distance and take it as one
walks to a cupboard for a certain dish.

Now, the aspect of the country began to change. The hills sank. The
streams ceased to sparkle and dash helter-skelter over the stones;
instead they flowed with a deep sluggish current and always to the west.
In some the water was so nearly still that they might be called lagoons.
Marshes spread out for great distances, and they were thronged with
millions of wild fowl. The air grew heavier, hotter and damper.

"We must be approaching the Mississippi," said Henry, who was quick to
draw an inference from these new conditions.

"It can't be very far," replied Ross, "because we are in low country
now, and when we get into the lowest the Mississippi will be there."

All were eager for a sight of the great river. Its name was full of
magic for those who came first into the wilderness of Kentucky. It
seemed to them the limits of the inhabitable world. Beyond stretched
vague and shadowy regions, into which hunters and trappers might
penetrate, but where no one yet dreamed of building a home. So it was
with some awe that they would stand upon the shores of this boundary,
this mighty stream that divided the real from the unreal.

But traveling was now slow. There were so many deep creeks and lagoons
to cross, and so many marshes to pass around that they could not make
many miles in a day. They camped for a while on the highest hill that
they could find and fished and hunted. While here they built themselves
a thatch shelter, acting on Ross's advice, and they were very glad that
they did so, as a tremendous rain fell a few days after it was finished,
deluging the country and swelling all the creeks and lagoons. So they
concluded to stay until the earth returned to comparative dryness again
in the sunshine, and meanwhile their horses, which did not stand the
journey as well as their masters, could recuperate.

Two days after they resumed the journey, they stood on the low banks of
the Mississippi and looked at its vast yellow current flowing in a
mile-wide channel, and bearing upon its muddy bosom, bushes and trees,
torn from slopes thousands of miles away. It was not beautiful, it was
not even picturesque, but its size, its loneliness and its desolation
ga