I pushed off about eleven in the forenoon of July 8th, and an hour's run in moderately fast water took me within sight and sound of the white caps of the first pitch of Buffalo Rapids. Clark had originally named these riffles "Buffaloe Shoal, from the circumstance of one of these animals being found in them." He describes it further as a "succession of bad shoals, interspersed with hard, brown, gritty rock, extending for six miles; the last shoal stretches nearly across the river, and has a descent of about three feet. At this place we were obliged to let the canoes down by hand, for fear of their splitting on a concealed rock; though when the shoals are known a large canoe could pass with safety through the worst of them. This is the most difficult part of the whole Yellowstone River...." Captain Clark would hardly have registered the latter verdict had he run the Yellowstone all the way from the Big Bend, where he first came upon it. Indeed, it seems to me that he must have run rapids above Billings that were quite as menacing as the one which now put his party to so much trouble to avoid. I would not be too dogmatic on that point, however. A hundred years of time bring great changes even to bedrock riffles, and these latter themselves also vary greatly according to the stage of water. I was assured that from August on there is still a nearly abrupt drop of several feet at one point in Buffalo Rapids. Although I was sure I could see my way past the first riffle without serious difficulty, I still thought it best to learn what I could at the farmhouse Doane had indicated. This proved to be a comfortable old log structure at a point where the right bank was being rapidly torn down by the swift current. A very deaf chap at the first door I approached strongly urged that I line all the way down, saying that there was at least one point where my boat could not possibly live. As that wasn't quite what I wanted to hear, I went round the house and tried another door. Here, in a big, fragrant kitchen, I found a family at lunch, but with one nice, juicy helping of cream-splashed tapioca pudding still unconsumed. I helped them out with that, and in return asked for information about the rapids. None of them was river-broke, but they said they had seen a rowboat run down the left side of the first riffle the previous summer and that they afterwards heard it was not upset until it got to Wolf Rapids, down Terry-way. That was more encouraging, at least as far as Buffalo Rapids were concerned, and I decided to push off and let Nature take its course. All of them, including the careful deaf brother, came down to speed me on. Rather anxious for a bit more weight aft to bring the head higher, I asked if any of them cared to run through with me to the railway bridge below the bend. All of them shook their heads save a flower-like slip of a girl of fourteen or thereabouts. She would have been game, I think--had the proper