y to recruit among
enlisted men."

"Excuse me, sor, ye are sayin' ye are goin' up the Missouri? Then I
know yez--yez are the Captain Lewis that has been buildin' the big
boat the last two months up at the yards--Captain Lewis from
Washington."

"Yes, and from the Ohio country before then--and Kentucky, too. I am
to join Captain Clark at the Point of Rocks on the Ohio. I need
another oar. Come, my man, we are on our way. Two minutes ought to be
enough for you to decide."

"I'll need not the half of two!" rejoined Patrick Gass promptly. "Give
me leave of my captain, and I am with yez! There is nothin' in the
world I'd liever see than the great plains and the buffalo. 'Tis fond
of travel I am, and I'd like to see the ind of the world before I
die."

"You will come as near seeing the end of it with us as anywhere else I
know," rejoined Lewis quietly. "Get your war-bag and come aboard."

In this curious fashion Patrick Gass of the army--later one of the
journalists of the expedition, and always one of its most faithful and
efficient members--signed his name on the rolls of the Lewis and Clark
expedition.

There was not one of the frontiersmen in the boat who had any comment
to make upon any phase of the transaction; indeed, it seemed much in
the day's work to them. But from that instant every man in the boat
knew he had a leader who could be depended upon for prompt and
efficient action in any emergency; and from that moment, also, their
leader knew he could depend on his men.

"I have nothing to complain of," said Patrick Gass, addressing his new
friends impartially, as he shifted his belongings to suit him and took
his place at a rowing seat. "I have nothing to complain of. I've been
sayin' I would like to have one more rale fight before I enlisted--the
army is too tame for a fellow of rale spirit. None o' thim at the camp
yonder, where I was two days, would take it on with me after the first
day. I was fair longin' for something to interest me--and be jabers, I
found it! Now I am continted to ind me vacation and come back to the
monothony of business life."

The boat advanced steadily enough thereafter throughout the night.
They pulled ashore at dawn, and, after the fashion of experienced
travelers, were soon about the business of the morning meal.

The leader of the party drew apart for the morning plunge which was
his custom. Cover lacking on the bare bar where they had landed, he
was not fully out of sight