“Mountain lions. His hobby is going after the big cats. He makes a good bit of money collecting the bounty on their hides. Hank says he wants to take us up in the hills for a cougar hunt.”

Mike jumped to his feet and gave a war whoop that rattled the windows. “Where exactly is this place we’re going to?” he asked excitedly. “What’s our first stop in Idaho?”

“Which question do you want me to answer?”

“Where are we going first?”

Mr. Cook spread the map over his desk. “Here,” he said, pointing the stem of his pipe at the juncture of three rivers in central Idaho. “Near the town of Salmon. We’ll stop there, hire some boats and a guide and get you two fellows used to a little white water.”

“White water?” Sandy’s expression was blank.

“Rapids. We’re going to have to run dozens on our trip downriver. They’re dangerous, too. We’ll portage our way around the worst ones, but we’ll go through most of them. By the way, do you know what portage is?”

“Not exactly, no,” replied Sandy.

“Well, it’s simple enough. When you get to a part of any stream that isn’t navigable for one reason or another, you pull in to land and tote everything, including the boat, to the next navigable part.”

“‘Simple,’ he calls it,” groaned Mike.

“It’s hard work, of course; but you’ll both come back in better shape than you’ve ever been in your life.”

Mike scrambled to his feet. “In that case,” he announced, “I’m going to have to start preparing myself. I think I remember a little cold chicken going back into the icebox, and that’s no way to treat chicken!” He started for the door.

“But you just finished dinner,” his father pointed out.

“I know,” Mike shot back over his shoulder. “But I didn’t do a very good job of it. Too busy thinking about the trip.”

Mr. Cook made a notation on the paper in front of him. “Item one on our list. Hire the Queen Mary as a provision ship so Mike will never have to go hungry.”

“The Queen Elizabeth’s bigger,” Mike called and disappeared into the kitchen.

CHAPTER TWO White Water

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