“Then I take it that you are going on up the river soon, sir?” said he. “I wish you good journey through the cow country. You’ll find the river narrower, with fewer islands, so I hear; and I should think it became swifter, but—I don’t know.”
“I was going to come to that,” said Uncle Dick, turning to Rob, John, and Jesse. “What do you think? I’d like you to get an idea of the river and all it meant, but we have only the summer and early fall to use. I don’t doubt we could plug on up with the motors, and get a long way above Great Falls, but about the time we got to where we could have some fun fishing or maybe shooting, we’d have to start east by rail. So I’d planned that we might make a big jump here.”
“How do you mean, sir?” Rob asked.
“Change our transportation.”
“Oh—because Lewis and Clark changed here?”
“Natural place for us to change, if we do at all,” said Uncle Dick. “We ought to stick as close to the river as we can, and as a matter of fact we have covered the most monotonous part of it. But we had to do that, for there was no other way to get here and still hang anywhere near to the river. And until we got here we struck no westbound railroad that would advance us on our journey.
“Here we could get up the Yellowstone by rail, but we are working on the Missouri. If we run on by motor car up to Buford, there we can get by rail over to the Great Falls, and still hang closer to the river; although, of course, we’ll not be following it.”
“But what’ll we do with our boat?” began Jesse, ruefully. “Hate to leave the little old Adventurer.”
“Well, now,” answered his uncle. “We couldn’t so well take her along, could we?”
“I’d like mighty well to buy her,” interrupted the editor. “That is, if you care to sell her.”