"Uncle Joe! What do you know about it?" asked his niece accusingly. "Nothing, my dear; not a single thing!" he expostulated, raising his hands in mock horror, his eyes resting on three new yawls turned bottomside up on the deck near the bow. He mentally pictured the half-dozen bullboats stowed on the main deck near the stern, each capable of carrying two tons if handled right, and he shook with laughter. This year the fur company's boat carried no liquor and its captain would insist on a most thorough inspection at Bellevue; but the fur posts on the upper river would be overjoyed by what she would bring to them. After the inspection she would proceed on her calm way, and tie against the bank at a proper distance above the agency; just as the _Belle_ would spend a night against the bank at a proper distance below Bellevue; and what the latter would run ashore after midnight, when the inquisitive minister was deep in sleep, would be smuggled upstream in the smaller boats during the dark of the night following, and be put aboard the fur boat above. "Uncle Joe!" said his niece. "You know something!" "God help the man that don't!" snorted her uncle. "Look there!" A heavily loaded Mackinaw boat had shot around the next bend. It was of large size, nearly fifty feet long and a dozen wide. In the bow were four men at the great oars and in the stern at the tiller was the _patron_, singing in lusty and not unpleasant voice and in mixed French and English, a song of his own composing. Patience put a finger to her lips and enjoined silence, leaning forward to catch the words floating across the turbulent water, and to her they sounded thus: _"Mon pere Baptiste for Pierre Chouteau He work lak dam in le ol' bateau; From Union down le ol' Missou Lak chased, by gar, by carcajou._ _"Le coureurs des bois, le voyageur, too, He nevaire work so hard, mon Dieu, Lak Baptiste pere an' Baptiste fils, Coureurs avant on le ol' Missou._ _"McKenzie say: 'Baptiste Ladeaux, Thees lettaire you mus' geeve Chouteau; Vous are one dam fine voyageur-- So hurry down le ol' Missou._ _"Go get vous fils an' vous chapeau, You mebby lak Mackinaw bateau'-- Lak that he say, lak one dam day Le voyage weel tak to ol' St. Lou!"_