“Then we ought to make some sort of voyage,” said Rob. “You see, Sir Alexander took thirty-four days coming up to this point from the place where he started, far east of the Rockies, but going downhill it only took him six days.”
“That was going some,” nodded John, emphatically, if not elegantly.
“But not faster than we’ll be going,” answered Rob. “You see, it took him a sixth of the time to go east which it needed to come west. Then, what they did in three days coming up, we ought to run in a half-day or less going down.”
Alex nodded approvingly. “I think it would figure out something like that way,” said he.
“So if we started now, or a little after noon,” resumed Rob, “and ran a full half-day we ought to pass all these rivers which Simon mentions, and get down to the first big rapid of which he speaks. They were good and tired coming up-stream, but we won’t have to work at all going down.”
“Well, don’t we eat any place at all?” began John again, amid general laughter.
“Sure,” said Moise, “we’ll stop at the first little beach and make boil the kettle. I’m hongree, too, me.”
They did as Moise said, and spent perhaps an hour, discussing, from time to time, the features of the country and the probable time it would take them to make the trip.
“The boat goes very fast on a stream like this,” said Alex. “We could make fifty or sixty miles a day without the least trouble, if we did not have to portage. I should think the current was four to six miles an hour, at least, and you know we could add to that speed if we cared to paddle.”
“Well, we don’t want to go too fast,” said Jesse. “We have all summer for this trip.”