rable ease. "Then," said I, "paddle her down to the mouth of
the Yellowstone, and the deal is made." After dark he returned to our
camp with a motor boat, ready to take us to our new craft, _Atom II_.

Leaving all our impedimenta to be shipped by rail, that is, Bill, the
tent, extra blankets, phonograph--everything but a few cooking-utensils,
an ax, a tarp, and a pair of blankets--the Kid and I got in with the
little man and dropped down to the Yellowstone. The new boat was moored
under a mud bank. I climbed in, lit a match, and my heart leaped with
joy. She was staunch and beautiful--a work of love, which means a work
of honesty. Fore and aft were air-tight compartments. She had an oil
tank, a water tank, engine housing, steering wheel, lockers. She was
ready for the very engine I had ordered to be shipped to me at Bismarck.
She was dry as a bone, and broad enough to make a snug bed for two.

The little man and the motor boat dropped out into the gloom and left us
gloating over our new possession, sending thankful rings of tobacco
smoke at the stars. When the first flush of triumph had passed, we
rolled up in the bottom of the boat, lulled to sleep by the cooing of
the fusing rivers, united under our gunwale. Such a sleep--a _dry_
sleep! and the sides of the boat protected us against the chill night
wind.

And the dawn came--shouting merrily like a boy! I once had a chum who
had a habit of whistling me out of bed now and then of a summer morning,
when the birds were just awakening, and the dew looked like frost on the
grass. And the sun that morning made me think of my old boy chum with
his blithe, persistent whistling. For the first hard stage of the
journey was done; all had left me but a brave lad who would take his
share of the hardships with a light heart. (All boys are instinctively
true sportsmen!) And before us lay the great winding stretch of a savage
river that I had loved long--the real Missouri of my boyhood.

A new spirit had come upon us with the possession of the _Atom II_--the
spirit of the forced march. For nearly a month we had floundered,
trusting to a sick engine and inefficient paddles. Now we had a staunch,
dry boat, and eight-foot oars. We trusted only ourselves, and we were
one in the desire to push the crooked yellow miles behind us. During the
entire fourteen hundred miles that desire increased, until our progress
was little more than a retreat. We pitched no camps; we halted only when
we c