us, trying to climb over our gunwale. We
wallowed in the wash of a bar, and cranked by turns. At the end of an
hour no illusions were left us. Holding an inquest over the engine, we
pronounced it dead.

In the drear fag end of the windy day, soaked from much wading and weary
of paddling with little headway, we made camp in a clump of scarlet
bull-berry bushes; and by the evening fire two talked of railroad
stations, one talked of home, and I thought of that one of the "soldiers
three" who "swore quietly into the sky."

The Milk River illusion was lost. Two hundred miles below was the mouth
of the Yellowstone--the first station in the long journey. A few days
back we had longed for gasoline; but there was no one to sell. Now we
had fifteen gallons to sell--and there was no one to buy. The hope
without the gasoline was decidedly better than the gasoline without the
hope. Whereat the philosopher in me emerges to remark--but who cares?
Philosophy proceeds backward, and points out errors of thought and
action chiefly when it has become too late to mend them. But it is
possible to be poor in the possession of erstwhile prospective wealth,
and rich in retrospective poverty. Oh, blessed is he who is negatively
rich!

Being a bit stunned by the death of the hope conceived in weariness, we
did not put off that night, but huddled up in our blankets close to the
log fire; for this midsummer night had in it a tang of frost.

Day came--cloudy and cold--blown over the wilderness by a wind that made
the cottonwoods above us groan and pop. The waves were higher than we
had seen them before. We had little heart for cordelling, and no
paddling could make headway against that gale. It was Sunday. Everything
was damp and chilly. Shivers ran up our backs while we toasted our feet
and faces; and the wind-whipped smoke had a way of blowing in every
direction at once. Charley struggled with the engine, which now and then
made a few revolutions--backwards--by way of leading him on. He heaped
big curses upon it, and it replied periodically with snorts of rage.

Bad blood developed, and mutiny ensued, which once gave promise of
pirate-story developments--fortunately warded off. Before the day was
done, it was made plain that the Kid and I would travel alone from the
mouth of the Yellowstone. "For," said the Kid with certain virile
decorations of speech, "I'm going with you if we have to buy skates!"

The wind fell at sunset. A chill, moonles