Chapter I: Preface

MY DEAR BOYS:--It is with great pleasure that I have responded to my publisher's appeal for a new volume in connection with boy pioneer life during those early days in the history of our country when brave men, and women also, kept pushing the frontier line constantly westward, toward the setting sun.

Since Bob and Sandy Armstrong came to the end of their migrations when they settled on the land purchased by old David, near the junction of the Missouri River with the mighty Mississippi, it is obvious that little that is new could be written concerning those old friends of ours.

But as it happened that they founded families of their own, and each had a son who was said to be a "chip of the old block," the story of young pioneer achievements can best be continued by transferring our allegiance to these two sturdy lads, Dick and Roger, whom, I feel sure, you will like fully as well as you did their fathers.

Just at the time when they had become strapping lads, ready to place full confidence in their ability to take care of themselves, it chanced that a wonderful opportunity came to them, whereby they were enabled to traverse the course of the great Missouri River from its mouth to its far-away source among the Rocky Mountains.

What this opportunity was like, and what astonishing things they met with on the long and dangerous journey, I have endeavored to describe and set down between the covers of this present book. I trust that you will enjoy reading it fully as well as you did the preceding volumes; and that at some date in the near future we may meet again in the pages of still another story of boy pioneer life.

HARRISON ADAMS.

_April 15th, 1914._

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
PREFACE v
I. TWO BOYS IN A DUGOUT CANOE 1
II. THE HOLLOW TREE REFUGE 15
III. A SHADOW OVER THE HOMESTEAD 27
IV. THE CABIN OF BOB ARMSTRONG 38
V. A GRAND PALAVER 48
VI. BAD NEWS 58
VII. OFF ON THE GREAT JOURNEY 68
VIII. THE TRACK OF THE MARKED HOOF 76
IX. ALONG THE BANK OF THE MISSOURI 86
X. THE TWANG OF A BOWSTRING 98
XI. "ALL, OR NONE!" 110
XII. THE HIDDEN CAMP 122
XIII. ON THE BILLOWY PRAIRIE 134
XIV. THE BUFFALO STAMPEDE 148
XV. SAFE IN THE TIMBER 158
XVI. THE PERILS OF THE WILDERNESS 169
XVII. A CLOSE CALL 181
XVIII. BROUGHT TO BAY BY THE WOLF PACK 195
XIX. THE LOST RIVER 207
XX. CASTING BREAD UPON THE WATERS 217
XXI. THE PICTURE WRITING ON THE BARK 227
XXII. CAUGHT IN A RIVER TRAP 237
XXIII. THE RISING WATERS 247
XXIV. A BITTER DISAPPOINTMENT 257
XXV. THE VILLAGE OF THE MANDANS 270
XXVI. STRANGE SIGHTS 286
XXVII. AT THE SALT-LICK 299
XXVIII. RUNNING ELK, THE SIOUX CHIEF 311
XXIX. A DESPERATE SITUATION 328
XXX. THE DAWN BREAKS--CONCLUSION 337
NOTES 351

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE
"A SQUAW DARTED FORWARD, . . . AND, SEIZING HOLD
OF ROGER, LOOKED EAGERLY IN HIS FACE"
(_See page 335_) _Frontispiece_
"ONCE EVEN DICK'S BEST WORK COULD NOT PREVENT THE
DUGOUT FROM TURNING PARTLY, SO AS TO EXPOSE
A SIDE TO THE WIND" 39
"AT THE EDGE OF THE WOODS THEY STOPPED THEIR
HORSES, AND TURNED IN THE SADDLE TO WAVE
A FAREWELL" 74
"WHEN THE THUNDER STOPPED BOOMING FOR A FEW SECONDS
THEY COULD HEAR THE ROAR OF THOSE COUNTLESS
HOOFS BEHIND THEM" 155
"WITH THE SHARP CRASH OF THE GUN THE GREAT GRAY
BODY OF THE CROUCHING BEAST FLEW UPWARD" 217
"CAPTAIN LEWIS AND CAPTAIN CLARK . . . WERE PLEASED
TO WELCOME DICK AND ROGER" 264

The Pioneer Boys of the Missouri