Say, I may be a widder almost any day now.

Somebody'll shore kill Danny Calkins 'fore long." "And, according to you, I may be a married man almost any day," I replied, smiling.
"But you ain't merried yit." "No, not yet," I answered.
"Well, if you git a chanct you take a look at that gal back there in the kebbin." Opportunity did not offer, however, to accept Mrs.McGovern's kindly counsel, and, occupied with my own somewhat unhappy reflections, I resigned myself to the monotony of the voyage up the Missouri River.

We plowed along steadily, although laboriously, all night, all the next day and the next night, passing through regions rich in forest growth, marked here and there by the many clearings of the advancing settlers.
We were by this time far above the junction of the Missouri River with the Mississippi--a point traceable by a long line of discolored water stained with the erosion of the mountains and plains far up the Missouri.

As the boat advanced, hour after hour, finally approaching the prairie country beyond the Missouri forests, I found little in the surroundings to occupy my mind; and so far as my communings with myself were concerned, they offered little satisfaction.

A sort of shuddering self-reproach overcame me.