it looks to me like there had been a whole lot
of people wandering around across this country long before Lewis and
Clark got here."

"Right you are, my boy. The truth is that right across these Plains
there went west the first American exploring expedition that ever saw
the Rockies. The French nobleman Verendrye, his three sons, and a
nephew, not to mention quite a band of Indians, started west across from
the Mandan country in 1742. On January 1, 1743, he records his first
sight of the Rocky Mountains, which he calls the Shining Mountains--a
fine name it is for them, too.

"The Verendrye expedition was the first to cross Wyoming or the Dakotas
so far in the west. They came back through the Bad Lands, above here,
and Verendrye records in his journal that near a fort of the Arikara
Indians he buried a plate of lead, with the arms and inscription of the
king. He did this in March, 1743. It always was supposed that this was
at or near Fort Pierre, South Dakota. That suspicion was absolutely
correct.

"In a little railway pamphlet put out by the Northern Pacific Railway it
is stated that on Sunday, February 16, 1913--one hundred and seventy
years after Verendrye got back that far east--a school girl playing with
some others at the top of a hill scraped the dirt from the end of a
plate, which then was exposed about an inch above the ground. She pulled
it out. The story said it looked like a range-stove lining. It was eight
and a half inches long by six and a half inches wide and an eighth of an
inch in thickness. Well, it was discovered to be the old Verendrye lead
plate--that's all!"

"That's a most extraordinary thing!" said Rob. "Well, anyhow, it shows
the value of leaving exploring records. So you couldn't blame William
Clark for writing his name at least twice on the rocks."

"No, the story of the Verendrye plate is, I think, one of the most
curious things I have ever read in regard to early Western history. You
never can tell about such things. Well, in any case Verendrye, the first
white man who ever saw the Shining Mountains, died in 1749. That was
fifty-five years before Lewis and Clark started up the river.

"There is not a hundred miles, or ten miles, or one mile, along all
these shores which has not historical value if you and I only knew the
story."

"But it's a long, long way up to the Mandans still," began John once
more.

His Uncle Dick gayly chided him.

"It'll not be so long--only a little over