The Young Alaskans on the Missouri

The blue smoke of their last camp fire on the South Fork rose almost straight in the still air of a clear summer day as their party sat around their last breakfast. Although not...

The little party stood curiously regarding an old and well-nigh ruined square structure of sun-dried brick, not far from which lay yet more dilapidated remnants of what once had...

Two days later, on August 4th, the travelers had pushed on up the valley of the Missouri, to what was known as the Two Forks, between the towns of Grayling and Red Rock. They pi...

Bright and early they were in the saddle and off for the crowning experience of their long quest for the head of the great Missouri. Billy brought up the horses from the ranch b...

Before sunup Rob had the camp fire going, while Jesse brought in water and wood and John bent over his cooking. Uncle Dick walked up the river to where he had landed his boat th...

"Well, Jesse, how'd you sleep last night?" inquired Billy in the morning, as he pushed the coffee pot back from the edge of the little fire and turned to Jesse when he emerged f...

"Well," said Jesse, late the next afternoon, when, in accordance with his promise, this new friend had pointed out the place where, the expert investigators usually agreed, the...

"And you haven't run your set line yet, Mr. Jess," reminded Rob; which was enough to cause Jesse to run down to the bank with his mouth full of bacon. He had forgotten all about...

"Yes, Jesse; but what is the only thing?" John smiled, and Rob, tall and neat in his Scout uniform, also smiled as he turned to the youngest of their party. They were alone, Unc...

"It's quite a bit of country, after all, between the Forks and the head, isn't it?" remarked Rob, on their fourth day out from the junction of the river. "I don't blame them for...

The motor-car journey of the party had not much of eventfulness, being practically, most of the way, through a farm or range country where roads of least passable sort led them...

"Let's see, Rob--what day of the month is this?" began John, the following morning, when, their bills for the horses and themselves all discharged and their motor car purring at...

The young travelers each night made their beds carefully, for they long since had learned that unless a man sleeps well he cannot enjoy the next day's work. It has been noted th...

"I'll tell you. This water is so roily you can't see into it very deep. It has a lot of snags and sweepers and buried stuff. Now, if she rides with bows high, she slips farther...

"It's a long, long way up to the Mandans!" sang John at the second camp above the Council Bluffs. "Wonder if we ever will get there before winter! Here we are, just below the Ve...

They completed their camp on the high point which they had reached. Billy brought in Nigger's panniers full of wood for the cooking fire, and they had water in the desert bag wh...

"Not so bad, not so bad at all," was John's comment as they all sat around the camp fire on the evening of July 5th. They had spent two pleasant days in town and now were forty...

Nearly a week had passed since the last recorded camp of the crew of the _Adventurer_--spent in steady progress across the great and beautiful state of Missouri and its rich bot...

"Take it easy, fellows," counseled the leader. "We've got to 'sun our powder,' as our _Journal_ would say. John, when you set down the day's doings in your own journal, make it...

They met at the breakfast table where Billy, who kept a bachelor home, had busied himself preparing a final good meal for them. They had abundance of nicely browned trout with f...

Turning at a point upon the further side of the valley, where the road forked off for the Yellowstone Park, the two cars passed on to the northward, through two or three gates o...

The young explorers, used as they were to outdoor life, had no difficulty in getting their outfit up a long coulee to the level of the prairie, where a small car quickly carried...

The young Alaskans, who had followed faithfully the travels of Lewis and Clark from the mouth of the Missouri to the Continental Divide, now felt exultation that they had finish...

Something of the feverish haste which had driven Capt. William Clark, when, weary and sore-footed, he and his little party has crowded on up along the great bend of the Missouri...

"One thing sure," said Rob, after a long silence, toward the close of the afternoon, "this isn't any wilderness now. Look at the fields and settlements we've passed. There's a t...

The three young Alaskans were all very fair masters of the art of fishing with the fly, and now surely had excellent opportunity to practice it. The trout and grayling were risi...

"He's something of a born map maker, then!" responded Uncle Dick. "There was one of the born geniuses of the world in map making. What a man he'd have been in our work--running...

Uncle Dick excused himself from the party for a time in the evening, having some business to attend to. He left the three boys in their room at a hotel, declaring they all would...

"Well, sister," said Uncle Dick, addressing that lady as she sat busy with her needlework at the window of a comfortable hotel in the city of St. Louis, "I'm getting restless, n...

They were passing under the great railroad bridge which connected Council Bluffs, Iowa, with Omaha, Nebraska. The older member of the party nodded gravely. "And can't you see th...

Even as he spoke he had plunged overboard on the upstream side, throwing his weight on the rail. The water caught him nearly waist deep, for the treacherous bar shelved rapidly.

It was on a morning in early spring that our four adventurers found themselves at the side of their boat, which rested on the bank of the great Missouri River, not far above its...

"She's riding fine, sir," called Rob to Uncle Dick, over the noise of the two little propellers that kept the gunwales trembling. "I can head her square into the mid current and...