It would be glorious."
"We might build the boat up in New Mexico," said the other, "and
drop down to the Gulf. That is, I guess we could. The Rio Grande
is shallow, and large boats run only a short distance up the river,
but we might make it with a small one."
"Let Fremont tell how he built his boat and got his provisions."
"Well," Fremont began, "we were standing on the high bridge at
Nashville, one day, when Frank Shaw brought out the brilliant
thought. He was doing a thinking part just then, for there
was a fine chance of our getting good and hungry before our checks
got to us."
"Then he was thinking, all right!" a boy laughed.
"Frank explained," George continued, "that the Cumberland river
had been placed in the scenery for the sole purpose of providing
transportation for us to the Mississippi. Then he went on and
told how we could build a flat-boat with a cabin on it and beat
the railroads out of our fare to Cairo. So we counted our money,
right there, on the bridge, and started for a lumber yard."
"It was a sporty notion, all right! Just you wait until we get
a houseboat into the dirty waters of the Rio Grande!"
"When we got the lumber, we all turned to and built the boat.
We didn't know much about boat-building, but we used what few
brains we had and got the boards together in pretty good shape,
considering. Boy Scouts can do almost anything now, since
they're learning how to help themselves. There isn't a boy in
the room who can't build a fire with sticks and cook a good meal
on it.
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