llows feel," said he. "Of course, we
know the Gate is a wonderful spot, where the two ranges pinch in; and
the five miles above, they all say, is one of the greatest canyons in
America--river deep, banks a thousand, fifteen hundred feet----"

"Sure fine!" nodded Billy, who had dropped back alongside.

"Yes, but you see, we've been in all sorts of canyons and things, pretty
much, first. Now, way it seems to me is, anybody can go, if it's a
steamboat trip. And if there's dams, she isn't so wild any more. We'd
rather put in our time wilder, I believe."

The others thought so, too. "Besides, we're following Clark now," said
Rob, "and he never saw the Gate at all, famous as it got to be after
Lewis described it. Lewis went wild over it."

"Let's sidestep everything and get up to the Forks," voted John. "I
didn't know this river was so long. We've got to hustle."

"I've got another book," said Uncle Dick, slapping his coat pocket. "It
covers the trail later on--1904. To-night in camp, I'll show you
something that it says about this country in here at the head of the
Missouri River.

"You maybe didn't know that Helena, on below us, used to be Last Chance
Gulch, where they panned $40,000,000 of gold--and had a Hangman's Tree
until not so very long ago, where they used to hang desperadoes.

"And off to Clark's right, when he topped the Ordway Creek divide, was
where Marysville is now. They only took $20,000,000 out of one mine,
over there! And so on. Wait till to-night, and I'll let you read
something about the great gold mines and other mines in this book.[3] I
told you the Missouri River leads you into the heart of the wildest and
most romantic history of America, though much of it is slipping out of
mind to-day."

[Footnote 3: _The Trail of Lewis and Clark_; Olin D. Wheeler, 1904.]

And that night, indeed around their first pack train camp fire, with the
light of a candle stuck in a little heap of sand on top a box, he did
read to an audience who sat with starting eyes, listening to the talks
of gold which were new to them.

"Listen here, boys," he said, after they had traced out the course of
the day and made the field notes which served them as their daily
journals. "Here's what it says about the very country we're in right
now:

"'Gold was discovered in Montana in 1852 and the principal mining
camps of the early days were, in the orders of discovery and
succession, Grasshopper Gulch--Bannack--1862;