ould proceed no further owing to sandbars encountered in the dark;
we ate as we found it convenient to do so. Regularly relieving each
other at the oars, one sat at the steering wheel, feeling for the
channel. And it was not long until I began to note a remarkable change
in the muscles of the Kid, for we toiled naked to the waist most of the
time. His muscles had shown little more than a girl's when we first swam
together at Benton. Now they began to stand out, clearly defined, those
of his chest sprawling rigidly downward to the lean ribs, and little
eloquent knots developed on the bronzed surface of his once smooth arms.
He was at the age of change, and he was growing into a man before my
eyes. It was good to see.

All the first day the gods breathed gently upon us, and we made fifty
miles, passing Trenton and Williston before dark. But the following day,
our old enemy, the head wind, came with the dawn. We were now sailing a
river more than twice the size of the Upper Missouri, and the waves were
in proportion. Each at an oar, with the steering wheel lashed, we forged
on slowly but steadily. In midstream we found it impossible to control
the boat, and though we hugged the shore whenever possible, we were
obliged to cross with the channel at every bend. When the waves caught
us broadside, we were treated to many a compulsory bath, and our clothes
were thoroughly washed without being removed. An ordinary skiff would
have capsized early in the day, but the _Atom II_ could carry a full
cargo of water and still float.

By sunset the wind fell, the river smoothed as a wrinkled brow at the
touch of peace. Aided by a fair current, we skulled along in the hush of
evening through a land of vast green pastures with "cattle upon a
thousand hills." The great wind had spread the heavens with ever
deepening clouds. The last reflected light of the sun fell red upon the
burnished surface of the water. It seemed we were sailing a river of
liquefied red flame; only for a short distance about us was the water
of that peculiar Missouri hue which makes one think of bad coffee
colored with condensed milk.

Slowly the colors changed, until we were in the midst of a stream of
iridescent opal fires; and quite lost in the gorgeous spectacle, at
length we found ourselves upon a bar.

We got out and waded around in water scarcely to our ankles, feeling for
a channel. The sand was hard; the bar seemed to extend across the entire
river; but a