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John G. Neihardt
The River and I
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066212407
Table of Contents
THE RIVER OF AN UNWRITTEN EPIC
ILLUSTRATIONS
Night in Camp Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
"Off on the Perilous Floods" 6
Barriers Formed before Him 7
The Boats Wrecked in an Ice Gorge 7
After the Spring Break-Up 18
"Hole-in-the-Wall" Rock on the Upper Missouri 19
Palisades of the Upper Missouri 19
Great Falls from Cliff Above 30
Great Falls from the Front 31
"This was Benton" 52
Ruins of Old Fort Benton 52
The House of the Bourgeois 53
A Round-Up Outfit on the March 62
Joe 62
Montana Sheep 63
A Montana Wool-Freighter 63
The "Atom I" under Construction 74
The Cable Ferry Towed Us Out 74
Laid Up with a Broken Rudder 75
"Atom" Sailing Up-Stream in a Head Wind 86
Typical Rapids on Upper Missouri 87
Wolf Point, the First Town in 500 Miles 98
Entrance to the Bad Lands 99
Fresh Meat! 110
Supper! 111
"Walking" Boats over Shallows 126
Typical Upper Missouri River Reach 126
The Mouth of the James 127
Reveille! 142
The Pen and Key Ranch 143
Assiniboine Indian Chief 154
Assiniboine Indian Camp 155
On the Hurricane Deck of the "Expansion"; Capt. Marsh Third from the Left 166
Fort Union in 1837 167
Site of Old Fort Union 167
Boats Laid Up for the Winter at Washburn, N.D. 178
Washburn, N.D. 178
The Landing at Bismarck, N.D. 179
The Yankton Landing in the Old Days 192
"Atom II" Landing at Sioux City 193
THE RIVER AND I
CHAPTER I
THE RIVER OF AN UNWRITTEN EPIC
IT was Carlyle—was it not?—who said that all great works produce an unpleasant impression on first acquaintance. It is so with the Missouri River. Carlyle was not, I think, speaking of rivers; but he was speaking of masterpieces—and so am I.
It makes little difference to me whether or not an epic goes at a hexameter gallop through the ages, or whether it chooses to be a flood of muddy water, ripping out a channel from the mountains to the sea. It is merely a matter of how the great dynamic force shall express itself.