It would be next to impossible to overtake the expedition on foot, as they had learned before now. In following the river, there were times when, on account of bad ground, they had to cover five miles in order to make one of progress. And all this time the hardy voyageurs who were boatmen for Captain Lewis would be urging their craft forward with the skill and ability peculiar to their kind.
This being the case, Dick was bent on finding some hiding-place for a camp, where they could be additionally secure, and the horses kept within close reach.
"No fire to-night, unless we can hide it," he announced to his companion, when they were once more moving along, keeping a constant lookout for foes, and at the same time on the alert for the nook that would meet their requirements for a camp.
"Then I do hope we'll be lucky enough to find a good place," he remarked, as he redoubled his efforts to make the discovery; "because I'm hungry for a bite of this fine young elk. Why, it's been three days now, or even more, since I put a tooth in fresh meat. This tough old pemmican is as hard as flint, and next to tasteless."
"But you know what our mother would say, Roger about looking a gift horse in the mouth. If we could get nothing better, this same dried venison would keep us alive; and when you're real hungry it doesn't seem so very bad."
"Oh, well, perhaps not, Dick," admitted the other; "and I've seen times when it tasted pretty good; but after being on that pemmican for three days, and with a young elk in hand, it would be hard if we couldn't have a fire to-night."
"Let's hope that the chance turns up, then," remarked Dick, cheerfully. "And about this same pemmican, you know that the Indians live pretty much all winter on it. Besides, when a brave is sent a hundred or two miles across country, to carry a message to the chief of another tribe, all he takes along with him is a little dried meat in his ditty bag, that he munches once in a while, drinking at the springs he runs across on the way. I believe an Indian runner could keep on from the Mississippi to the ocean just that way, carrying all he needed to eat in a package not larger than my head."
They kept pushing on, making as good time as the nature of the rough ground permitted; while the sun dropped out of sight, and dusk began to gather around them.