“Pretty hard to help it, that’s no lie,” said Billy. “This country’s all settled now. They been running a steamer up and down the Cañon above the Gate of the Mountains. You folks going to take that trip? Want to see the big dam at the head, at the old ferry?”
Uncle Dick turned in his saddle, to see what the boys would say. John made bold to answer.
“Well, I don’t know how the other fellows feel,” said he. “Of course, we know the Gate is a wonderful spot, where the two ranges pinch in; and the five miles above, they all say, is one of the greatest cañons in America—river deep, banks a thousand, fifteen hundred feet——”
“Sure fine!” nodded Billy, who had dropped back alongside.
“Yes, but you see, we’ve been in all sorts of cañons and things, pretty much, first. Now, way it seems to me is, anybody can go, if it’s a steamboat trip. And if there’s dams, she isn’t so wild any more. We’d rather put in our time wilder, I believe.”
The others thought so, too. “Besides, we’re following Clark now,” said Rob, “and he never saw the Gate at all, famous as it got to be after Lewis described it. Lewis went wild over it.”
“Let’s sidestep everything and get up to the Forks,” voted John. “I didn’t know this river was so long. We’ve got to hustle.”
“I’ve got another book,” said Uncle Dick, slapping his coat pocket. “It covers the trail later on—1904. To-night in camp, I’ll show you something that it says about this country in here at the head of the Missouri River.
“You maybe didn‘t know that Helena, on below us, used to be Last Chance Gulch, where they panned $40,000,000 of gold—and had a Hangman’s Tree until not so very long ago, where they used to hang desperadoes.