Indeed, the great river seemed disposed to show the young travelers that her prowess had not diminished. They had a hard fight that day in more than one fast chute, and twice dragged the propellers on bars which they did not see at all. Uncle Dick used the oars three or four hours that day, and Jesse, the boatman, spread his foresail to gain such added power as was possible. In this way they made very good time, so that by late evening they reached the mouth of the Gasconade, which comes in from the left from the hill country. They got a good camp near the mouth, with abundance of wood. Jesse was so lucky as to take two fine wall-eyed pike, here called jack salmon, on his set line, as well as two catfish. They let the latter go, as they had enough for the day, the wall-eyes proving excellent.
“Now we’re beginning to get into deer!” said Rob. “Here George Shannon killed a deer, and Reuben Fields got one the next day. And all the time, as you no doubt remember, we’ve been meeting canoes coming down from the Omahas and Osages and Pawnees and Kansas, loaded down with furs!”
“I remember perfectly,” asserted John, solemnly. “I can see them going by right now! Pretty soon we pick up old man Dorion, coming down from the Sioux, and hire him to go back as an interpreter for us.”
“Could catch a lot of catfish and ‘jurk’ the meat, the way Captain Clark did venison,” said Jesse, at length.
According to their usual custom when on the trail, they were off by sunup, the exhaust of the double motors making the wooded shore echo again. They made their third encampment at the mouth of a stream which they took to be that called Good Woman River in the Journal—a name no longer known on their map.
“Whew!” complained Uncle Dick, as he got out and stretched his legs. “This is cramping me as bad as the trenches in the Argonne. You fellows’ll ‘do me in,’ as the British used to say, if I don’t look out! How far do you think we’ve come in the three days, Rob?”
“Let’s see. I figure about one hundred and ninety to two hundred miles, that’s all! What Lewis and Clark needed was our boat and a few outboard kickers. It took them till June 7th, twenty-three days, to get to this point. We’ve gained, you might say, three weeks on their time.”
“Yes, but they got three bears at this camp, and we’ve got nothing! We don’t dare kill even a squirrel, though I’m sure we could get some sort of game in this rough country not far back.” John spoke ruefully.
“Don’t kick, John,” advised Jesse, sagely. “I’ll take care of you. Besides, look at the big help the wind was to-day. Clark says he had only a ‘jentle breese’ in here.”
“Or words to that effect,” smiled Rob. “The main thing is, we travel many times faster than they possibly could. Even so, she’s a long trail ahead.”