"Two months from the Omaha nation, seven hundred miles up the river," sang out the swiftly passing Frenchmen bound for St. Louis.
Behind them a huge raft,—
"From the Pawnees on the Platte!"
And yet behind three other rafts, piled, heaped, and laden to the water's edge,—
"From the Grand Osage!"
Such alone was greeting and farewell, as the barks, unable to be checked, went spinning down the water.
What a gala for the winter-bound trapper! Home again! home again! flying down the wild Missouri in the mad June rise! They stopped not to camp or to hunt, but skimming the wave, fairly flew to St. Louis. They came, those swift-gliding boats, like visions of another world, the world Lewis and Clark were about to enter.
June 5, two more canoes flashed by with beaver,—
"From eighty leagues up the Kansas river!"
June 8, boats with beaver and otter slid by, and rafts of furs and buffalo tallow,—