r
his Christmas dinner, and sometimes on other occasions, perhaps; and
his name is Sandy, too. I think I heard your brother call you Sandy?
This is your brother, is it not?" And the lady turned towards
Charlie.

The lad explained the relationship of the little party, and the lady
from Baltimore introduced the members of her party. They had been far
up the river to Fort Benton, where they had spent some weeks with
friends who were in the military garrison at that post. The young men,
of whom there were three in the party, had been out hunting for
buffalo, elk, and other big game. Had the boys ever killed any
buffalo? The pleasant-faced young gentleman who asked the question had
noticed that they had a full supply of guns when they came aboard at
Leavenworth.

Yes, they had killed buffalo; at least, Sandy had; and the youngster's
exploit on the bluff of the Republican Fork was glowingly narrated by
the generous and manly Charlie. This story broke the ice with the
newly met voyagers and, before the gong sounded for supper, the
Whittier boys, as they still called themselves, were quite as well
acquainted with the party from Baltimore, as they thought, as they
would have been if they had been neighbors and friends on the banks of
the Republican.

The boys looked in at the supper-table. They only looked; for although
the short autumnal afternoon had fled swiftly by while they were
chatting with their new friends or exploring the steamboat, they felt
that they could not possibly take another repast so soon after their
first real "tuck-out" on the "New Lucy." The overloaded table,
shining with handsome glass and china and decked with fancy cakes,
preserves, and sweetmeats, had no present attractions for the boys.
"It's just like after Thanksgiving dinner," said Oscar. "Only we are
far from home," he added, rather soberly. And when the lads crawled
into their bunks, as Sandy insisted upon calling their berths, it
would not surprise one if "thoughts of home and sighs disturbed the
sleeper's long-drawn breath."

Time and again, in the night-watches, the steamer stopped at some
landing by the river-side. Now it would be a mere wood-pile, and the
boat would be moored to a cottonwood tree that overhung the stream.
Torches of light-wood burning in iron frames at the end of a staff
stuck into the ground or lashed to the steamer rail shed a wild, weird
glare on the hurrying scene as the roustabouts, or deck-hands, nimbly
lugged t