"Well, we could pick the way easier, but she had more power," said Rob. "Everybody knows a big boat beats a little one. But she didn't beat us much, at that." "The _Adventurer's_ a good boat," nodded Uncle Dick, "and I think on the whole we've got a pretty good idea of the travel of 1804 and 1805, or will have before we're done. "But now, one thing or two I want you also to bear in mind. Life isn't all adventure. Commerce follows on the trail of adventure. The fur traders forgot the romance, and hurried in up the Missouri, as soon as they could. And what fur they did get! No wonder Great Britain was sorry to meet Lewis and Clark up here! "There were a lot of important fur posts that fed into the Missouri. The mouth of the James River was a good post. Fort Pierre--on the Teton, down below--was the best post on the river except Union, at the Yellowstone. Pierre covered two and a half acres of ground, but Union was better built--she had twenty-foot palisades a foot square, and she stood two hundred and forty by two hundred and twenty feet, with stone bastions at two corners, pierced for cannon, and a riflemen's banquette clear around inside. "They were right in the middle of the Sioux and near the Blackfeet, and after the smallpox came on the river, the Indians got bitter and hated the thought of a white man. But they had only fur to trade for rifles and traps and blankets, and the white traders made the only market. "I was speaking of Fort Pierre, because of a journal kept in 1832 by the trader at that place. It is largely a record of weather and water, but has a touch or so of interest now and then--I made some notes from it. Thus, I find that on June 24th the steamer _Yellowstone_ arrived, down bound, and they put six hundred packs of buffalo robes on her. That boat on the next day had on board one thousand three hundred packs of robes and beaver. In the old trade a pack was ninety to one hundred pounds. "On July 9th three bateaux got in from Fort Union with a lot of robes. They loaded on one bateau one hundred and twenty packs of beaver and other fur, and on another thirty packs of robes, and she was to take on one hundred and twenty to one hundred and thirty packs more at Yankton post. "On July 11th four bateaux left Fort Pierre for St. Louis, and they carried three hundred and fifty-five packs of robes and ten thousand two hundred and thirty pounds of beaver. And on July 30th another bateau came down from Union with six thousand beaver skins on board. "From this you can see something of the size of the big bateaux--or Mackinaws--of that time, and something of the size of the fur trade as well. And all the time the big river was outfitting the hardy pack-train men who brought out fortunes in beaver from the rivers of the Rockies. Great times, boys--great times! And all of that trade rested on the Lewis and Clark expedition.