….. and so this young man returns to the valley. As a boy, he had trapped here with his father. Befriending the valley’s keepers, he’s spent many evenings around the villages campfires along the river. A young maiden had befriended him and they could be seen together as inseparable friends for ever.
Then, the father and boy left one spring, the boy’s father never to return.
Seven winters passed, and finally, the boy returned, singing the song as a single man sworn to keep …a promise he’d made to someone. She had waited.
Now, in the new light of day, her father, the chief and his wife, stood on the high bank of the river as the young couple left in the old trader’s canoe, a last loving wave to a daughter they would never see again.
A beginning for a young couple intending to cross the Missouri to build their life on the other side.
The clouds, the river, and the hearts all celebrated this new dawn song from the sides the valley.
As the canoe approaches a bend in the river to take the young couple out of sight…………… look away, ……………… look away!
We are bound away, ……………………….to cross the wide Missouri.

Shenandoah  (left click on the song title)