“All we know is that we’ll get through!” said John. “We always have.”
“We’re discovering romance,” said Uncle Dick. “We’re discovering America, too. Jesse, take down your Flag from the bow staff—don’t you know the Flag must never be allowed to fly after sunset?”
They were now lying in their blankets in their tent, on a wind-swept point. “I wonder if Captain Clark took down the flag. Now, I wonder——”
But what Jesse wondered was lost, for soon he was asleep.
CHAPTER VII
THE GATE OF THE WEST
Nearly a week had passed since the last recorded camp of the crew of the Adventurer—spent in steady progress across the great and beautiful state of Missouri and its rich bottom lands, its many towns, its farms and timber lands and prairies. Many an exclamation at the wild beauty of some passing scene had been theirs in the constant succession of changing river landscapes.
Their own adventures they had had, too, with snags and sweepers and the dreaded “rolling sands” over which the current boiled and hissed ominously; but the handlers of the boat were well used to bad water on their earlier trips together, in the upper wildernesses of the continent, so they made light of these matters.