"That's what I have been promising my party!" said Uncle Dick. "But they shall not go fishing until they have got a complete notion of how all this country lies and how Lewis and Clark got through it." "They hardly ever were together any more, in here," said Rob. "First one, then the other would scout out ahead. And they both were sick. Clark was laid up after he met the boat party at the Forks, and Lewis took his turn on ahead. What good sports they were!" "Yes," said John, "and what good sports the men were! They'd had to track and pole up here, all the way from the Falls, and at night they were worn out. Grub was getting scarce and they hadn't always enough to keep strong on. And above the Forks they had to wade waist deep in ice water, for hours, slipping on the stones, in their moccasins, and their teeth chattering. I'll bet they hated the sight of a beaver, for it was the beaver dams that kept all the shores full of willows and bayous, so they couldn't walk and track the boat, but had to take to the stream bed. Why, the beaver were so bad that Lewis got lost in the dams and had to lie out, one night! And he didn't know where his boats were, either." "Well, that's what brought in the first wave of whites," said Uncle Dick--"the beaver. Then after they had got the beaver about all trapped out, say fifty years, in came the placer mines. Then came the deep lode mines--silver and copper. And then the farmers. Eh, Billy?" "Sure," said Billy. "And then the tourists! Lots of folks that run dude ranches make more than they could raising hay. The Gallatin Valley, above me, is settled solid. It's the finest black-land farm country in all the Rockies, and pretty as a picture. So's the Beaverhead Valley, and all these others, pretty, too. Irrigation now, instead of sluices; and lots of the dry farmers from below go up to Butte and work in the mines in the wintertime--eight or ten thousand men in mines there all the time." "And all because we'd bought this country from Napoleon!" said John. "I'm reading about that," said Billy. "I've got lots of books and maps, and, living right in here, I've spent a lot of time studying out where Lewis and Clark went. I tell it to you, they just naturally hot-footed it plumb all through here, one week after another. They did more travel, not knowing a thing about one foot of this country, and got over more of it, and knew more about it every day, than any party of men since then have done in five times the time they took." "And didn't know where they were, or what would be next," assented John. "Those chaps were the real, really real thing!"