The boat swung into the stream; the engines made but one or two revolutions when the boilers burst with a terrific explosion that blew the boat into splinters and scattered them far and wide. Nearly all the officers were killed, among them the pilot, Charles La Barge, Captain La Barge’s brother, and the second pilot, Louis Guerette, Mrs. La Barge’s brother. It is said that over one hundred bodies were found. Several children who escaped, but had lost their parents, were adopted by the people of Lexington and grew up to be citizens of Missouri instead of Mormon residents of the future State of Utah. The bell of this boat was blown out on the bank while yet it was ringing under the hand of Captain Belt. It was purchased with other wreckage by a resident of Lexington, who sold it to the Christian Church in Savannah, Mo., where it has done duty for the past fifty years. [Sidenote: HUNTERS FOR THE BOATS.] After the time when the boats began to carry passengers in considerable numbers, much more attention was paid to the table fare than in the days when the passenger list was made up almost entirely of men going to service with the fur companies. In those days pork, lyed corn, and navy beans made up the substance of the bill of fare. It was always a rule, when in the Indian country, to rely on game for meat. For this purpose hunters were regularly employed on the various boats, selected for their skill, and never called upon for any other work. The hunter’s custom was to leave the boat about midnight, some three or four hours before she was to start, and to scour the bank of the river, keeping well ahead. Whenever any animal was killed it was hung up in some conspicuous place, and was brought in by the steamboat yawl as the boat came along. Captain La Barge had many of these hunters in his employ during his career. Henry Chatillon, the same who appears in Francis Parkman’s “Oregon Trail,” was one. He was a fine man, an excellent hunter, and sensible and gentlemanly in all his relations. The Captain’s favorite hunter, however, was Louis Dauphin, who was more fearless than Chatillon and equally skillful as a hunter. He had a very long career on the Missouri River. He seemed to delight in danger, and was never afraid of the Indians; but his lack of prudence at last cost him his life, and he was killed by the Sioux near the mouth of Milk River in 1865. [Sidenote: PASSENGERS AND CARGO.]