"Maybe you could," said Uncle Dick, "but you are not to laugh at William Clark, who was a great man. He did all that writing after a hard day's work, in a wild and strange country. I suppose it was hard for him to write, but he did it, and here it is. "Oddly enough, Clark wrote a very fine, clear hand--a gentleman's handwriting. The _Journals_ are always done in pen and ink. Clark did most of the work in the _Journal_, but Lewis at times took a hand. Between them they kept what might be called the log of the voyage. "They worked, all of that party. The oarsmen had to work under a taskmaster all day. Some one had to hunt, for they only had about a ton of cargo, all told, and they only had $2,500 to spend for the whole trip out and back, and to feed forty people two years. And at night the commanders made Gass and Ordway and Floyd and Whitehouse keep journals, too; and Pryor and Frazier did a bit of the same, like enough. They had to cover everything they saw. "So that is how we got this wonderful _Journal_, boys--one of the simplest and most manly books ever written. As I said, it was long forgotten and came near being ruined. "The book of Patrick Gass got out first, and it had many publishers on both sides the ocean--though, of course, it had to be rewritten a great deal. Up to 1851 there had been fifteen real and fake Lewis and Clark books printed, in English, French, and German; and there are about a dozen books with Sergeant Patrick Gass as the 'author.' "They had no cameras in those days, but those men brought out exact word pictures of that land and its creature inhabitants. The spelling we must forget--that day was different and schools were rare. But good minds and bodies they surely had. They were not traders or trappers--they were explorers and adventurers in every sense of the word, and gentlemen as well. "But now," concluded Uncle Dick, "that'll do for the story of the _Journal_. We've got it with us, and will use it right along. We're all ready, now? Well, let's be off, for now I see the wind is with us, and it's even more than William Clark started with when his three boats left the Wood River and started up the Missouri. He said they had a 'jentle brease.' "Off we go--on the greatest waterway in all the world, and on the trail of the greatest explorers the world has ever known." "Now then," commanded Rob, laying hold of the rail. "Heave--o!" The others also pushed. The good ship _Adventurer_ swung free of the sand and lay afloat. They sprang in. Uncle Dick steadied her with the oars. Jesse and John went ahead to trim ship. Rob gave a couple of turns to the flywheels of the two outboard motors and adjusted his feet to the special steering gear. The doubled motors began their busy sput-sput-sput! Like a thing of life the long craft, _Adventurer, of America_, turned into the current of the great Missouri, the echoes of the energetic little engines echoing far and wide. CHAPTER V OFF UP THE RIVER