ve been expecting that," rejoined their leader. "I was afraid you'd
want to go through! But we can't do it, fellows, not this year at least.
There's the school term we've got to think of. We're nearly three
thousand miles from St. Louis. That means we'll have to choose between
two or three weeks of the hardest kind of mountain work and back out
when we've got nowhere, and taking a fast and simple trip to the true
head of the Missouri. Which would you rather do?"

"We don't like to turn back," said Rob.

"Well, it wouldn't be turning back, really. It would be going to the
real head of the Missouri--and neither Lewis nor Clark ever did that, or
very many other men." Billy spoke quietly.

"But don't think," he added, "that I'm not game to go on into the Bitter
Roots, if you say so. I'm promising you she's rough, up in there. The
trail they took was a fright, and I don't see how they made it. It ran
to where this range angles into the corner of the Bitter Roots, and
crossed there. They crossed another pass, too, and that makes three
passes, from here. They got here July 10th, and three days later at last
they hit the Lolo Creek trail, over the Lolo Pass--the way old Chief
Joseph came east when he went on the war trail; he fought Gibbon in the
battle of the Big Hole, above here."

Rob sighed. "Well, it only took Lewis and Clark a couple of months to
get through. But still, we've only got a couple of weeks."

"What do you say, John? Shall we go south to the head with Billy?" Uncle
Dick did not decide it alone.

"Vote yes, in the circumstances," said John. "Hate to quit her, though!"

"You, Jess?"

"Oh, all right, I'll haul off if the rest do. We'll get to fish some,
won't we?"

"All you want. The best trout and grayling fishing there is left
anywhere."

"It's a vote, Uncle Dick!" said Rob. "This is our head camp on this leg
of the trip."

"I think that's wise," said Uncle Dick.

"But before we leave here I want you to have a last look at the map."

They spread it open in the firelight.

"This point is where Clark came and got the canoes the next year, 1806.
They came back over the Lolo, but took a short cut, east of this
mountain range, forty miles east of the other trail. They came over the
Gibbon Pass--which ought to be called Clark's Pass and isn't--and headed
southeast, the Indian girl being of use again now. They came down
Grasshopper Creek, walking over millions of dollars of gold gravel, and
found the