ms. It was plain to the eye, for the
jutting brown flood of the Missouri, dotted with great masses of drift,
was treated with proper suspicion by the clearer flood of the nobler
stream, and curved far out into the latter without losing the identity
of its outer edge for some distance below.

CHAPTER III

ARMIJO'S STRONG ARM

Piloting on the Mississippi was tricky enough, with the shifting bars
and the deadly, submerged logs, stumps, and trees; but the Missouri was
in a class by itself; indeed, at various stages of high water it seemed
hardly to know its own channels or, in some places, even its own bed. It
threw up an island today to remove it next week or ten years later, and
cut a new channel to close up an old one whenever the mood suited.
Gnawing off soft clay promontories or cutting in behind them was a
favorite pastime; and the sand and clay of its banks and the vast
expanses of its bottoms coaxed it into capricious excursions afield.
More than one innocent and unsuspecting settler, locating what he
considered to be a reasonable distance from its shores on some rich
bottom, found his particular portion of the earth's surface under the
river or on its further bank when he returned from a precipitate and
entirely willing flight.

There were two tricks used on the river to get out of sandbar
difficulties that deserve mention. During certain stages of the river it
for some reason would cross over from one side of its bed to the other,
and between the old and the new deep channels would be a space of
considerable distance crossed by the water where there was no channel,
but only a number of shallow washes, none of which perhaps would be deep
enough to let a steamboat through. The deepest would be selected, and
if only two or three more inches of water were needed, the boat would be
run up as far as it could go, the crew would fix the two great spars
with their shoes against the bottom, slanting downstream, set the steam
capstans drawing on their ropes, and then reverse the paddle wheel. The
turning of the great wheel would force water under the hull while the
spars pushed backward and, raising a platform of water around her and
taking it with her, she would slide over the shallow place and go on
about her business.

In case of a bar where there were no submerged banks to hold a platform
of water, and only a few more inches needed, the spars would be used as
before, but the paddle wheel would remain idle.