him,
went on down the awful river. The very next day they ran suddenly out
into an open space. They had at last got out of the Grand Canyon, which
had held them prisoners for sixteen days.
They went on down the river, and the next day after this they found
some settlers drawing a seine or net to catch fish in the river. These
settlers had heard that Major Powell and his men were lost, and they
were keeping a lookout for any pieces of his boats that might float
down from above. Food of many kinds was sent from the nearest
settlement to feast the hungry men who had so bravely struggled through
the Grand Canyon.
THE-MAN-THAT-DRAWS-THE-HANDCART.
George Northrup was but a boy of fifteen when his father died. Having
nothing to keep him at home, he went to the Indian country, which at
that time was in Minnesota. He had a boyish notion that he could go
through to the Pacific Ocean by making his way from one tribe to
another. When he was eighteen years old, a few years before the Civil
War, he tried to make this journey. He loaded his provisions into a
handcart, and took a big dog along for company. For thirty-six days he
did not see anybody, or hear any voice but his own. Then he found paths
made by Indian war parties. He knew, that, if one of these parties
should find him, he would be killed.
One morning he found all his food stolen from his handcart. Either
Indians or wolves had taken it. He now saw how foolish his boyish plan
had been. He turned back, and at last reached a trading post, almost
starved to death. For days he had had little to eat except such frogs
as he could catch.
After this the Indians always called him
"The-man-that-draws-the-handcart."
As he grew older, he became a famous trapper and guide. He knew all
about the habits of animals. He could shoot with a better aim than any
Indian or any other white man on the frontier. He often walked eighty
miles in a day across the prairie. He could manage the Indians as no
other man could.
This strange young man lived among rough and wicked men. But he never
drank or swore, or did anything that anybody could have thought wrong.
He never even smoked, as other men about him did, but he lived his own
life in his own way. Everybody loved him for his gentleness. Everybody
admired him for his courage and manliness. All the spare money he got
he spent for good books.
When winter time came, he would sometimes hire other trappers, who did
not know the
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