“Well, this was their range, young excellencies, and this was the head of the disputed ground between the Crows, Nez Percés, Flatheads, and Shoshonis, all of whom knew good buffalo country when they saw it.
“And yet, what luck our first explorers had! They surely did have luck, for they had good guidance of the Minnetarees among the Mandans, and then, from the time they left the Mandans until the next fall, beyond the Three Forks of the Missouri, they never saw an Indian of any sort! At the Great Falls, a great hunting place, they found encampments not more than ten days or so old, but not a soul.
“Thus endeth the lesson for to-day! I’m sorry we haven’t a camp to go to to-night instead of a hotel, but I promise to mend that matter for you in a day or so, if Billy Williams is up from Bozeman with his pack train, as I wired him. I said the fifteenth, and this is the thirteenth, so we’ve two days for the Falls. I wish we didn’t know where they were! I wish I didn’t know the Marias isn’t the Missouri. I wish—well, at least I can wish that old Fort Benton was here and the whistle of the steamboat was blowing around the bend!”
“Don’t, sir!” said Rob. “Please don’t!”
“No,” said John. “To-day is to-day.”
“All the same,” said Jesse, “all the same——”