ntly
decided that he could accompany them no farther.

"I'd rather go on with you than do anything I know," said he, "but it's
going to be quite a trip, and I won't have time, even if we could get
through with a car."

Uncle Dick nodded. "Really the best way to do this would be to take ship
again here and follow the river up the Great Falls," he said; "but by
the time we got a boat rigged and had made the run up--best part of six
hundred miles--we'd be almost a month further into the summer--because
the river is swifter above here. They made good time, but it was mostly
cordelle work. And, using gas motors, the boys wouldn't have much chance
of any real sport and exercise, which, of course, I want them to have
every summer when possible.

"Get your map, John--the big government map--and let's have a look at
this country in west of here."

John complied. They all bent over the map, which they spread down on the
floor of the tent. Their gasoline camp lantern shed its brilliant light
over them all as they bent down in study of the map.

"You'll see now that we're almost at the farthest north point on the
Missouri River. From here it runs almost west to the Great Falls, and
then almost south. Now our new railroad (the Great Northern Railroad)
will take us to the Great Falls of the Missouri, but it by no means
follows the Missouri. On the contrary, a little over two hundred miles
from here, I'd guess, it strikes the Milk River--as Lewis and Clark
called it--and follows that river half across the state of Montana. It
would carry us out to the Blackfeet Reservation, and what is now Glacier
Park--my own hunting ground among the Blackfeet, where I knew Joe
Kipp--but that is entirely off the map for us."

"Why, sure it is!" said Jesse, following the line of the river with his
finger. "Look it! It runs away south, hundreds of miles, into the
southwest corner of the state; and the railroad goes almost to Canada.
And there's a lot of river between here and Great Falls, too--bad water,
you say?"

"And see here where the Yellowstone goes!" added Rob. "It's away below
the Missouri, a hundred, a hundred and fifty miles in places--no
railroads and no towns."

"No," remarked their leader, "but one of the real wild places of the
West in its day--as cow range or hunting range, that wild and broken
country in there had no superior, and not many men know all of it even
now. Part of it is wonderfully beautiful.

"At no part of the