ve it a somber grandeur, which all the travelers felt. It was the same
river that had received De Soto's body many generations before, and it
was still a mystery.

"We know where it goes to, for the sea receives them all," said Mr.
Pennypacker, "but no man knows whence it comes."

"And it would take a good long trip to find out," said Sol.

"A trip that we haven't time to take," returned the schoolmaster.

Henry felt a desire to make that journey, to follow the great stream,
month after month, until he traced it to the last fountain and uncovered
its secret. The power that grips the explorer, that draws him on through
danger, known and unknown, held him as he gazed.

They followed the banks of the stream at a slow pace to the north,
sweltering in the heat which seemed to come to a focus here at the
confluence of great waters, until at last they reached a wide extent of
low country overgrown with bushes and cut with a broad yellow band
coming down from the northeast.

"The Ohio!" said Ross.

And so it was; it was here that the stream called by the Indians "The
Beautiful River"--though not deserving the name at this place--lost
itself in the Mississippi and at the junction it seemed full as mighty a
river as the great Father of Waters himself.

They did not stay long at the meeting of the two rivers, fearing the
miasma of the marshy soil, but retreated to the hills where they went
into camp again. Yet Ross, and Henry, and Sol crossed both the Ohio and
the Mississippi in the frail canoe for the sake of saying that they had
been on the farther shores. The three, leaving Paul and the schoolmaster
to guard the camp, even penetrated to a considerable distance in the
prairie country beyond the Ohio. Here Henry saw for the first time a
buffalo herd of size. Buffaloes were common enough in Kentucky, but the
country being mostly wooded they roamed there in small bands. North of
the Ohio he now beheld these huge shaggy animals in thousands and he
narrowly escaped being trampled to death by a herd which, frightened by
a pack of wolves, rushed down upon him like a storm. It was Ross who
saved him by shooting the leading bull, thus compelling them to divide
when they came to his body, by which action they left a clear space
where he and Henry stood. After that Henry, as became one of
fast-ripening experience and judgment, grew more cautious.

All the party were in keen enjoyment of the great journey, and felt in
their veins