Part 11 (1/2)

Just as it fell they caught sight of Captain Clark sitting on the rocks. They thought they had seen him fall out of the sky. They thought that the sound of his gun was a sound like thunder that was made when he came down.

The Indians all ran away as fast as they could. They went into their wig-warns and closed them.

Captain Clark wished to be friendly with them. So he got a canoe and paddled to the other side of the river. He came to the Indian houses.

He found the flaps which they use for doors shut. He opened one of them and went in. The Indians were sitting down, and they were all crying and trembling.

Among the Indians the sign of peace is to smoke to-geth-er. Captain Clark held out his pipe to them. That was to say, ”I am your friend.”

He shook hands with them and gave some of them presents. Then they were not so much afraid.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Lighting a Pipe with a Burning Gla.s.s.]

He wished to light his pipe for them to smoke. So he took out his burning gla.s.s. He held it in the sun. He held his pipe under it. The suns.h.i.+ne was drawn together into a bright little spot on the tobacco.

Soon the pipe began to smoke.

Then he held out his pipe for the Indians to smoke with him. That is their way of making friends. But none of the Indians would touch the pipe. They thought that he had brought fire down from heaven to light his pipe. They were now sure that he fell down from the sky. They were more afraid of him than ever.

At last Captain Clark's Indian man came. He told the other Indians that the white man did not come out of the sky. Then they smoked the pipe, and were not afraid.

QUICKSILVER BOB.

Robert Fulton was the man who set steam-boats to running on the rivers. Other men had made such boats before. But Fulton made the first good one.

When he was a boy, he lived in the town of Lan-cas-ter in Penn-syl-van-ia. Many guns were made in Lancaster. The men who made these guns put little pictures on them. That was to make them sell to the hunters who liked a gun with pictures. Little Robert Fulton could draw very well for a boy. He made some pretty little drawings. These the gun makers put on their guns.

Fulton went to the gun shops a great deal. He liked to see how things were made. He tried to make a small air gun for himself.

He was always trying to make things. He got some quick-sil-ver. He was trying to do something with it. But he would not tell what he wanted to do. So the gun-smiths called him Quick-sil-ver Bob.

He was so much in-ter-est-ed in such things, that he sometimes neg-lect-ed his lessons. He said that his head was so full of new notions, that he had not much room left for school learning.

One morning he came to school late.

”What makes you so late?” asked the teacher.

”I went to one of the shops to make myself a lead pencil,” said little Bob. ”Here it is. It is the best one I ever had.”

The teacher tried it, and found it very good. Lead pencils in that day were made of a long piece of lead sharpened at the end.

Quick-sil-ver Bob was a very odd little boy. He said many cu-ri-ous things. Once the teacher punished him for not getting his lessons. He rapped Robert on the knuckles with a fer-ule. Robert did not like this any more than any other boy would.

”Sir,” said the boy, ”I came here to have something beaten into my head, not into my knuckles.”

In that day people used to light candles and stand them in the window on the Fourth of July. These candles in every window lighted up the whole town. But one year candles were scarce and high. The city asked the people not to light up their windows on the Fourth.