Many years previous to this time their grandfather, David Armstrong, had emigrated from Virginia to the banks of the Ohio, being tempted to take this step because of wonderful stories concerning that country told to him by his good friend, the famous pioneer, Daniel Boone.
His family consisted of three children, a girl and two boys, Bob and Sandy. The brothers grew up versed in woods lore, as did all border boys. They knew all about the secrets of the great forest and the mighty waters. And, indeed, in those days, with peril constantly hovering over their heads, it was essential that boys should learn how to handle a rifle as soon as they could lift one of the long-barreled weapons to their shoulder.[1]
Later, the pioneer was tempted to continue still further into the Golden West, always with the rainbow of promise luring him onward toward the setting sun. With other families, the Armstrongs drifted down the beautiful Ohio, and finally settled on the Missouri, above the trading post of St. Louis.
Here the two sturdy lads grew to manhood, married, and built cabins of their own, near that of old David and his wife. To Bob came two boys, Dick and Sam; while his brother had a son, Roger, and a sweet girl named Mary, after her grandmother.
These two cousins, Dick and Roger, hunted in company, and were as fond of one another as their fathers had been. Dick was a little the older, and acted as a sort of safety valve upon the more impulsive Roger; but both learned the lessons of Nature, day by day, until, at the time we make their acquaintance in this volume, they were capable of meeting the craftiness of the Indian, or the fury of the forest wild beast, with equal cunning.
On the previous spring there had fallen a bombshell into the happy homes of the Armstrongs near the thriving settlement named after the French king. When David, on his arrival years before, had purchased a large section of land that was bound to grow very valuable for his heirs in later years, he had believed his title to be clear and unquestioned.
Later, it turned out that a certain signature was lacking to make the title valid, and unless this could be obtained within a certain time from an heir of the original owners, the entire tract would be taken from them. An unscrupulous French trader, named François Lascelles, had secured the opposing claim, and threatened to evict the Armstrongs in the coming spring, unless they could produce that valuable signature.
This impending family trouble affected Dick and Roger greatly. They began to make investigations and learned that the man whose signature was wanted, Jasper Williams by name, a hunter and trapper, was then far away in the unknown regions of the West.
They also learned that this forest ranger expected to join an exploring party headed by two men who had recently been in St. Louis, and whom they had met in company with their grandfather, David Armstrong. These were Captain Lewis and Captain Clark, sent out by the President of the United States to learn what lay far beyond the Mississippi Valley, and possibly to proceed all the way to the Pacific Ocean, which was known to lie hundreds, perhaps thousands of miles west of the Mississippi Valley. ([Note 1].)[2]