One evening in the first week in September, when it was raining as hard as it could rain, and when the wind was blowing as hard as it could blow, and was driving empty boxes and barrels, and old tin pails, and wash-boilers, and castaway hats and runaway hats and lost hats, and other things across the prairie before it, Jack came into my office, where I was setting type (my printer having been blown away, along with the boxes and the hats), and after he had allowed the rain to run off his clothes and make little puddles like thin mud pies on the dusty floor, he said: 

[Illustration:  The Voyage First Suggested]

“I’m tired of making poor cheeses.”

“Well,” I answered, “I’m tired of printing a poor newspaper.”

“Let’s sell out and go somewhere,” continued Jack.

“All right,” I said.  “Let’s.”

So we did.

Of course the Rattletrap wasn’t a boat which sailed on the water, though I don’t know as I thought to mention this before.  In fact, a water boat wouldn’t have been of any use to us in getting out of Prairie Flower, because there wasn’t any water there, except a very small stream called the Big Sioux River, which wandered along the prairie, sometimes running in one direction and sometimes in the other, and at other times standing still and wondering if it was worth while to run at all.  The port of Prairie Flower was in Dakota.  This was when Dakota was still a Territory, three or four years, perhaps, before it was cut into halves and made into two States.  So, there being no water, we of course had to provide ourselves with a craft that could navigate dry land; which is precisely what the Rattletrap was-namely, a “prairie schooner.”

“I’ve got a team of horses and a wagon,” went on Jack, that rainy night when we were talking.  “You’ve got a pony and a saddle.  We’ve both got guns.  When we drive out of town some stray dog will follow us.  What more ’ll we want?”

“Nothing,” I said, as I clapped my stick down in the space-box.  “We can put a canvas cover on the wagon and sleep in it at night, and cook our meals over a camp-fire, and—­and—­have a time.”

“Of course—­a big time.  It’s a heavy spring-wagon, and there is just about room in it behind the seat for a bed.  We can put on a cover that will keep out rain as well as a tent, and carry a little kerosene-oil stove to use for cooking if we can’t build a fire out-doors for any reason.  We can take along flour, and-and—­and salt, and other things to eat, and shoot game, and—­and—­and have a time.”

We became so excited that we sat down and talked till midnight about it.  By this time the rain had stopped, and when we went out the stars were shining, and the level ground was covered with pools of water.

“If it was always as wet as this around here we could go in a genuine schooner,” said Jack.

“Yes, that’s so.  But what shall we call our craft?”