w the flapjacks disappeared as a result of that singing! We ate
until Charley refused to bake any more; then we rolled up in our
blankets by the fire and "swapped lies," dropping off one at a time into
sleep until the last speaker finished his story with only the drowsy
stars for an audience. At least I suppose it was so; I was not the last
speaker.

Alas! too seldom were we to hail the evening star with song. So far we
had made in a week little more than one hundred and fifty miles. With
the exception of a few hours of head winds, that week had been a week of
dream. We now awoke fully to the fact that in low water season the
Missouri is not swift. In our early plans we had fallen in with the
popular fallacy that one need only cut loose and let the current do the
rest; whereas, in low water, one would probably never reach the end of
his journey by that method. In addition to this, our gasoline was
running low. We had trusted to irrigation plants for replenishing our
supply from time to time. But the great flood of the spring had swept
the valley clean. Where the year before there were prosperous ranch
establishments with gasoline pumping plants, there was only desolation
now. It was as though we traveled in the path of a devastating army.
Perhaps the summer of 1908 was the most unfavorable season for such a
trip in the last fifty years. Steamboating on the upper river is only a
memory. There are now no wood-yards as formerly. We found ourselves with
no certainty of procuring grub and oil; our engine became more and more
untrustworthy; our paddles had been lost. What winds we had generally
blew against us, and the character of the banks was changing. The cliffs
gave way to broad alluvial valleys, over which, at times, the gales
swept with terrific force.

Our map told us of a number of river "towns." We had already been
partially disillusioned as to the character of those "towns." They were
pretty much in a class with Goodale, except that they lacked the switch
and the box-car and the sign. Just now Rocky Point lay ahead of us.
Rocky Point meant a new supply of food and oil. Stimulated by this
thought, Charley cranked heroically under the blistering sun and managed
to arouse the engine now and then into spasms of speed. He had not yet
begun to swear. Fearfully I awaited the first evidence of the new mood,
which I knew must come.

At least once a day we put the machinery on the operating table. Each
time we succeeded o