“Of course not. Well, he came much later than my captains, and was an artist. But my captains had found the way. Rob and Frank know. They’ve read the worked-over Journals of Lewis and Clark. Me, I’ve even seen the originals. I swear those curious pages make my heart jump to this very day, even after our travels on the soil of France just now—France, the country that practically gave us our country, or almost all of it west of the Missouri, more than a hundred years ago. She didn’t know, and we didn’t know. Well, we helped pay the rest of the price, if there was anything left back, at Château Thierry and in the Argonne.” His sister was looking at the stiffened leg, and Uncle Dick frowned at that. “It’s nothing,” said he. “Think of the others.” “And all for what?” he mused, later. “All for what, if it wasn’t for America, and for what America was meant to be, and for what America was and is? So, about my boys—what d’ye think, my dear, if they wandered with me, hobbling back from the soil of old France, over the soil of the New France that once lay up the Big Muddy, yon—that New France which Napoleon gave to make New America? Any harm about that, what?... [Pg 6]Lest we forget! Lest all this America of ours to-day forget! Eh, what?” By this time his sister had quite finished smoothing out the work on her knee. “Of course, I knew all along you’d go somewhere,” she said. “You’d find a war, or anything like that, too tame! Will you never settle down, Richard!” “I hope not.” “But you’ll take the boys out of school.” “Not at all. To the contrary, I’ll put them in school, and a good one. Besides, we’ll not start till after school is anyhow almost out for the spring term. We’ll just be about as early as Lewis and Clark up the Missouri in the spring.” “You’ll be going by rail?” “Certainly not! We’ll be going by boat, small boat, little boat, maybe not all boat.” “A year! Two years!” Uncle Dick smiled. “Well, no. We’ve only got this summer to go up the Missouri and back, so, maybe as Rob did when he enlisted for eighteen, we’ll have to smouch a little!” “I’ll warrant you’ve talked it all over with those boys already.” Uncle Dick smiled guiltily. “I shouldn’t wonder!” he admitted.