"Dat one funny name," chuckled Chaboneau. "Ze 'Some-odder-river.'" And he laughed. Not for considerable time did he explain to his comrades that "koos koos kee" was only Indian for "This is not the river; it is some other river."
But the Kooskooskee or Clearwater River does the stream remain unto this day.
"More mountains! Wirrah, more mountains!" lamented Patrick Gass, when the Indian road left the banks of the stony Kooskooskee and through the roughest kind of a country started upward again. "Will we niver be out into some place where it's open enough to see 'round a corner?"
"Nebber so col' in mah life befoh," chattered York, plodding on in frozen moccasins, with snow to his ragged knees. "We got to follow Marse Will an' Marse Merne—but how do dis hyar Tobe know whar he gwine?"
Sa-ca-ja-we-a pointed ahead from her pony's back. She had learned to understand even York's speech. She was very smart and quick.
"Pony rub bark," she said. For, as anybody ought to be able to perceive, the snow-covered trail was marked above by places where Indian pony packs had scuffed low-hanging branches. This to Peter was very plain.
This night the brown colt was killed, for supper.
"I slept with me heels higher 'n me head," in the morning announced Pat. "'Tis a fine country where
