"If they were," went on grandfather, "they had plenty of time to rest them, for they didn't have to leave their boats again unless they wanted to until they got to the Gulf of Mexico."
"The Gulf of Mexico!" rose a chorus that included every member of the party except Dicky whose knowledge of geography was limited to a very small section of Rosemont, the New Jersey town he lived in.
"It's a fact," insisted Mr. Emerson. "The outlet of Lake Chautauqua is the little stream called the Chadakoin River. It flows into Conewango Creek, and that loses itself in the Allegheny River."
"I know what happens then," cried Ethel Brown; "the Allegheny and the Monongahela join to form the Ohio and the Ohio empties into the Mississippi—"
"And the Mississippi empties into the Gulf of Mexico!" concluded Ethel Blue triumphantly.
"Good children," commented Roger patronizingly as he turned around to give a condescending pat on the two girls' heads. Finding that their hats prevented this brotherly and cousinly attention he contented himself with tweaking each one's hair before he turned back as if he had accomplished a serious duty.
"Can't you see the picture in your mind!" murmured Helen, looking out of the window. "Just imagine all those tall brown men carrying their canoes on their shoulders and tramping through the forest that must have covered all this region then."
"More interesting men than Indians went over this stretch of country in the olden days," said Mrs. Emerson.
"Who? Who?" cried the Ethels, and Dicky asked, "Was it the President?" Mr. Wilson, the former Governor of his own state, having been the most interesting personage he had ever seen.
"In a minute Grandfather will tell you about the Frenchmen who came here, but I want you to notice the farms we are going through now before we climb the hill and leave them behind."