he began. "Rob, I see you're poring over some
old book, as usual. What is it--same _Journal_ of Lewis and Clark?"

"Yes, sir," said Rob McIntyre looking up, his eyes shining. "It's
great!"

"And here's John Hardy with his maps!" exclaimed Jesse Wilcox. "Look it!
He's got a notion he can do a map as well as Captain William Clark."

"He's something of a born map maker, then!" responded Uncle Dick. "There
was one of the born geniuses of the world in map making. What a man he'd
have been in our work--running preliminary surveys! He just naturally
knew the way across country, and he just naturally knew how to set it
down. On hides, with a burnt stick--on the sand with a willow twig--in
the ashes with a pipe stem--that's how his maps grew. The Indians showed
him; and he showed us."

"I've often tried to tell," said Rob, "which was the greater of those
two men, Clark or Lewis."

"You never will," said his uncle. "They were the two greatest bunkies
and buddies of all the world. Clark was the redhead; Lewis the dark and
sober man. Clark was the engineer; Lewis the leader of men. Clark had
the business man in him; Lewis something more--the vision, the faith of
the soul as much as the self-reliance of the body. A great pair."

"I'll say they were!" assented John. "My! what times!"

"And what a country!" added Jesse, looking up from his map.

"Yes, son; and what a country!" His uncle spoke seriously.

"But now, fellows," he added, "about that little _pasear_ of ours--that
slide of a couple of thousand miles this summer, up the little old
Missouri to the Rockies and down the river again--thing we were talking
of--what do you say?"

"Oh, but we can't!" said Jesse.

"Oh, but I'll bet we can!" said John, who caught a twinkle in Uncle
Dick's eye.

"Yes, and we will!" said Rob, also noting his smile.

"Yes," said Uncle Dick. "I've just come from talking with the acting
commanding officer. She says that on the whole she gives consent,
provided I don't keep you out of school."

"It took Lewis and Clark two years," demurred John. "But they were out
of school--even though poor Will Clark hadn't learned much about
spelling. They didn't have to get back by the first week in September."

"And we don't want to scamp it," said thoroughgoing, sober Rob.

"But we don't want to motor it," countered John.

"I'll tell you," said Jesse Wilcox, the youngest and smallest of the
three. "We can go by power boat, most way, anyhow. That's