Part 14 (2/2)

”Here we could get up the Yellowstone by rail, but we are working on the Missouri. If we run on by motor car up to Buford, there we can get by rail over to the Great Falls, and still hang closer to the river; although, of course, we'll not be following it.”

”But what'll we do with our boat?” began Jesse, ruefully. ”Hate to leave the little old _Adventurer_.”

”Well, now,” answered his uncle. ”We couldn't so well take her along, could we?”

”I'd like mighty well to buy her,” interrupted the editor. ”That is, if you care to sell her.”

”I never knew my boys to sell any of their sporting equipment,” said the other. ”But I expect they'd give it to you, right enough. Eh, boys?”

They looked from one to another. ”If the gentleman wanted her,” began Rob, at last, ”and if we've done with her, I don't see why we couldn't.

But I think we ought to take the motors along as far as we can, because we might need them.”

”Good idea,” Uncle d.i.c.k nodded. ”We can get a trailer here, can't we?”

he asked of their friend.

”Sure; and a good car; too. I'll drive you up to Buford, myself, for the fun of it--and the value of it to me. I'll get a car at Bismarck. We can pack your outfit in the trailer and the motors, too, easily. You can check and express stuff through to Great Falls from Buford--and there you are. How'll you go from there--boat?”

”I don't believe so,” replied Uncle d.i.c.k. ”I believe we'd have more freedom if we took a pack train above Great Falls, and cut across lots now and then, checking up in our _Journal_ all the way.”

”That's the stuff!” exclaimed John. ”Horses!”

”Lewis and Clark used horses for some distance, at the crossing,” said Uncle d.i.c.k, ”so I think we may dare do so. We want all the variety we can get, and all the fun we can get, too. What do you say, young gentlemen?”

”It sounds good to me,” said Rob. ”I'd like to see the mountains pretty well. You see, a great part of our lives has been spent in Alaska and the northern country, and we're just getting acquainted with our own country, you might say. The Rockies this far south must be fine in the early fall.”

”It suits me,” a.s.sented John. ”I'd like to take the _Adventurer_ along, but Lewis and Clark didn't take their boats through all the way, either.”

”And if we had time,” added Jesse, ”we could run some river late in the fall, say from Great Falls down to here.”

”All good,” nodded Uncle d.i.c.k. Then turning to their new friend, ”Suppose we cross our camp to Bismarck the morning of July 5th, tie up our boat there for you, and then go on in the way you suggest--motor and trailer?”

”Agreed,” said the other. ”I'll be there early that day.”

”Which way shall we go?” asked Rob. ”If we took the road along the Northern Pacific west, we could see the Bad Lands, and go through Medora, Theodore Roosevelt's old town.”

The editor shook his head. ”Bad, if there's rain,” he said. ”Besides, that takes you below the Missouri. I think we'd best go on the east side the river, north of Bismarck. We could swing out toward the Turtle Lakes, and then make more west, toward the Fort Berthold Reservation.

From there we could maybe get through till we struck the Great Northern Railroad; and then we could get west to Buford, on the line, and on the river again. If we got lost we could find ourselves again some time.”

”How long would it take?” inquired Rob.

”If it's two hundred and eighty-eight miles by the river, it would be maybe two hundred and fifty by trail. We could do it in a day, on a straightaway good road like one of the motor highways, but we'll have nothing of the sort. I'll say two days, three, maybe four--we'd know better when we got there.”

”That sounds more adventurish,” said Jesse. And what the youngest of them thought appealed to the others also.

”Very well. All set for the morning after the Fourth,” said Uncle d.i.c.k.

”And when we go back to Mandan be sure not to eat too much ice cream, for we're not apt to run across very many doctors on the way. And now we'd better get ready to camp here to-night. We can make Mandan by noon to-morrow--it's faster, downstream.”

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