Sir and My Friend:
Almost I am in despair. This is my fifth letter; you receive it, perhaps, some months after your start. I think you would have come back before now, if that had been possible. I had no news of you, and now I dread news. Should you still be gone a year from the time I write this, then I shall know that you were dead. Dead? Yes, I have written that word!
The swift thought comes to me that you will never see this at all—that it may, it must, arrive too late. Yet I must send it, even under that chance. I must write it, though it ruin all my happiness. Shall it come to you too late, others will take it to my husband. Then this secret—the one secret of my life—will be known. Ah, I hope this may come to your eyes, your living eyes; but should it not, none the less I must write it.
What matter? If it should be read by any after your death, that would be too late to make difference with you, or any difference for me. After that I should not care for anything—not even that then others would know what I would none might ever know save you and my Creator, so long as we both still lived.
This wilderness which you love, the wilderness to which you fled for your comfort—what has it done for you? Have you found that lonely grave which is sometimes the reward of the adventurer thither? If so, do you sleep well? I shall envy you, if that is true. I swear I often would let that thought come to me—of the vast comfort of the plains, of the mountains—the sweep of the untiring winds, sweet in the trees and grasses—or the perpetual sound of water passing by, washing out, to the voice of its unending murmurs, all memory of our trials, of our sins.
What need now to ask you to come back? What need to reproach you any further? How could I—how can I—with this terrible thought in my soul that I am writing to a man whose eyes cannot see, whose ears cannot hear?
Still, what difference, whether or not you be living? Have not your eyes thus far been blind to me? Have not your ears been deaf to me, even when I spoke to you direct? It was the call of your country as against my call. Was ever thinking woman who could doubt what a strong man would do? I suppose I ought to have known. But oh, the longing of a woman to feel that she is something greater in a man’s life even than his deeds and his ambitions—even than his labors—even than his patriotism!
It is hard for us to feel that we are but puppets in the great game of life, of so small worth to any man. How can we women read their hearts—what do we know of men? I cannot say, though I am a married woman. My husband married me. We had our honeymoon—and he went away about the business of his plantations. Does every girl dream of a continuous courtship and find a dull answer in the facts? I do not know.
How freely I write to you, seeing that you are blind and deaf, of that wish of a woman to be the one grand passion of a strong man’s life—above all—before even his country! What may once have been my own dream of my capacity to evoke such emotions in the soul of any man I have flung into the scrap-heap of my life. The man, the one man—no! What was I saying, Meriwether Lewis, to you but now, even though you were blind and deaf? I must not—I must not!
Nay, let me dream no more! It is too late now. Living or dead, you are deaf and blind to all that I could ever do for you. But if you be still living, if this shall meet your living eyes, however cold and clear they may be, please, please remember it was not for myself alone that I took on the large ambitions of which I have spoken to you, the large risks engaged with them. Nay, do not reproach me; leave me my woman’s right to make all the reproaches. I only wanted to do something for you.
I have not written so freely to any man in all my life. I could not do so now did I not feel in some strange way that by this time—perhaps at this very time—you are either dead or in some extreme of peril. If I knew that you would see this, I could not write it. As it is, it gives me some relief—it is my confessional. How often does a woman ever confess her own, her inner and real heart? Never, I think, to any man—certainly not to any living, present man.
I married; yes. It seemed the ordinary and natural thing to do, a useful, necessary, desirable thing to do. I should not complain—I did that with my eyes well opened and with full counsel of my father. My eyes well opened, but my heart well closed! I took on my duties as one of the species human, my duties as wife, as head of a household, as lady of a certain rank. I did all that, for it is what most women would do. It is the system of society. My husband is content.
What am I writing now? Arguing, justifying, defending? Ah, were it possible that you would read this and come back to me, never, never, though it killed me, would I open my heart to you! I write only to a dead man, I say—to one who can never hear. I write once more to a man who set other things above all that I could have done. Deeds, deeds, what you call your country—your own impulses—these were the things you placed above me. You placed above me this adventuring into the wilderness. Yes, I know what are the real impulses in your man’s life. I know what you valued above me.
But you are dead! While you lived, I hoped your conscience was clean. I hope that never once have you descended to any conduct not belonging to Meriwether Lewis of Virginia. I know that no matter what temptation was yours, you would remember that I was Mrs. Alston—and that you were Meriwether Lewis of Virginia.
Nay, I cannot stop! How can you mind my garrulous pen—my vain pen—my wicked, wicked, wicked, shameful pen—since you cannot see what it says?
Ah, I had so hoped once more to see you before it was too late! Should this not reach you, and should it reach others, why, let it go to all the world that Theodosia Burr that was, Mrs. Alston of Carolina that is, once ardently importuned a man to join her in certain plans for the betterment of his fortunes as well as her own; and that you did not care to share in those plans! So I failed. And further—let that also go out to the world—I glory in the truth that I have failed!
Yes, that at last is the truth at the bottom of my heart! I have searched it to the bottom, and I have found the truth. I glory in the truth that you have not come back to me. There—have I not said all that a woman could say to a man, living or dead?
Just as strongly as I have urged you to return, just as strongly I have hoped that you would not return! In my soul I wanted to see you go on in your own fashion, following your own dreams and caring not for mine. That was the Meriwether Lewis I had pictured to myself. I shall glory in my own undoing, if it has meant your success.
Holding to your own ambition, keeping your own loyalty, holding your own counsel and your own speech to the end—pushing on through everything to what you have set out to do—that is the man I could have loved! Deeds, deeds, high accomplishments—these in truth are the things which are to prevail. The selfish love of success as success—the love of ease, of money, of power—these are the things women covet from a man—yes, but they are not the things a woman loves in a man. No; it is the stiff-necked man, bound in his own ambition, whom women love, even as they swear they do not.
Therefore, do not come back to me, Meriwether Lewis! Do not come—forget all that I have said to you before—do not return until you have done your work! Do not come back to me until you can come content. Do not come to me with your splendid will broken. Let it triumph even over the will of a Burr, not used to yielding, not easily giving up anything desired.
This is almost the last letter I shall ever write to any man in all my life. I wonder who will read it—you, or all the world, perhaps! I wish it might rest with you at the last. Oh, let this thought lie with you as you sleep—you did not come back to me, and I rejoiced that you did not!
Tell me, why is it that I think of you lying where the wind is sweet in the trees? Why is it that I think of myself, too, lying at last, with all my doubts composed, all my restless ambitions ended, all my foolish dreams answered—in some place where the sound of the unceasing waters shall wash out from the memory of the world all my secrets and all my sins? Always I hear myself crying:
“I hope I shall not be unhappy, for I do not feel that I have been bad.”
Adieu, Meriwether Lewis, adieu! I am glad you can never read this. I am glad that you have not come back. I am glad that I have failed!
CHAPTER XI
THE BEE
“
Captain, dear,” said honest Patrick Gass, putting an arm under his wounded commander’s shoulders as he eased his position in the boat, “ye are not the man ye was when ye hit me that punch back yonder on the Ohio, three years ago. Since ye’re so weak now, I have a good mind to return it to ye, with me compliments. ’Tis safer now!”
Gass chuckled at his own jest as his leader looked up at him.
The boiling current of the great Missouri, bend after bend, vista after vista, had carried them down until at length they had reached the mouth of the Yellowstone, and had seen on ahead the curl of blue smoke on the beach—the encampment of their companions, who were waiting for them here. These wonderful young men, these extraordinary wilderness travelers, had performed one more miracle. Separated by leagues of wild and unknown land, they met now casually, as though it were only what should be expected. Their feat would be difficult even today.
William Clark, walking up and down along the bank, looking ever upstream for some sign of his friend, hurried down to meet the boats, and gazed anxiously at the figure lifted in the arms of the men.
“What’s wrong, Merne?” he exclaimed. “Tell me!”
Lewis waved a hand at him in reassurance, and smiled as his friend bent above him.
“Nothing at all, Will,” said he. “Nothing at all—I was playing elk, and Cruzatte thought it very lifelike! It is just a bullet through the thigh; the bone is safe, and the wound will soon heal. It is lucky that we are not on horseback now.”
By marvel, by miracle, the two friends were reunited once more; and surely around the camp fires there were stories for all to tell.
Sacajawea, the Indian girl, sat listening but briefly to all these tales of adventure—tales not new to one of her birth and education. Silently and without question, she took the place of nurse to the wounded commander. She had herbs of her own choosing, simple remedies which her people had found good for the treatment of wounds. As if the captain were her child—rather than the forsaken infant who lustily bemoaned his mother’s absence from his tripod in the lodge—she took charge of the injured man, until at length he made protest that he was as well as ever, and that they must go on.
Again the paddles plied, again the bows of the canoes turned downstream. It seemed but a short distance thence to the Mandan villages, and once among the Mandans they felt almost as if they were at home.
The Mandans received them as beings back from the grave. The drums sounded, the feast-fires were lighted, and for a time the natives and their guests joined in rejoicing. But still Lewis’s restless soul was dissatisfied with delay. He would not wait.
“We must get on!” said he. “We cannot delay.”
The boats must start down the last stretch of the great river. Would any of the tribesmen like to go to the far East, to see the Great Father? Big White, chief of the Mandans, said his savage prayers.
“I will go,” said he. “I will go and tell him of my people. We are poor and weak. I will ask him to take pity on us and protect us against the Sioux.”
So it was arranged that Big White and his women, with Jussaume, his wife, and one or two others, should accompany the brigade down the river. Loud lamentations mingled with the preparations for the departure.
Sacajawea, what of her? Her husband lived among the Mandans. This was the end of the trail for her, and not the rudest man but was sad at the thought of going on without her. They knew well enough that in all likelihood, but for her, their expedition could never have attained success. Beyond that, each man of them held memory of some personal kindness received at her hands. She had been the life and comfort of the party, as well as its guide and inspiration.
“Sacajawea,” said Meriwether Lewis, when the hour for departure came, “I am now going to finish my trail. Do you want to go part way with us? I can take you to the village where we started up this river—St. Louis. You can stay there for one snow, until Big White comes back from seeing the Great Father. We can take the baby, too, if you like.”
Her face lighted up with a strange wistfulness.
“Yes, Capt’in,” said she, “I go with Big White—and you.”
He smiled as he shook his head.
“We go farther than that, many sleeps farther.”
“Who shall make the fire? Who shall mend your moccasins? See, there is no other woman in your party. Who shall make tea? Who shall spread down the robes? Me—Mrs. Charbonneau!”
She drew herself up proudly with this title; but still Meriwether Lewis looked at her sadly, as he stood, lean, gaunt, full-bearded, clad in his leather costume of the plains, supporting himself on his crutch.
“Sacajawea,” said he, “I cannot take your husband with me. All my goods are gone—I cannot pay him; and now we do not need him to teach us the language of other peoples. From here we can go alone.”
“Aw right!” said Sacajawea, in paleface idiom. “Him stay—me go!”
Meriwether Lewis pondered for a time on what fashion of speech he must employ to make her understand.
“Bird Woman,” said he at length, “you are a good girl. It would pain my heart to see you unhappy. But if you came with me to my villages, women would say, ‘Who is that woman there? She has no lodge; she does not belong to any man.’ They must not say that of Sacajawea—she is a good woman. Those are not the things your ears should hear. Now I shall tell the Great Father that, but for Sacajawea we should all have been lost; that we should never have come back again. His heart will be open to those words. He will send gifts to you. Sometime, I believe, the Great Father’s sons will build a picture of you in iron, out yonder at the parting of the rivers. It will show you pointing on ahead to show the way to the white men. Sacajawea must never die—she has done too much to be forgotten. Some day the children of the Great Father will take your baby, if you wish, and bring him up in the way of the white men. What we can do for you we will do. Are my words good in your ears?”
“Your words are good,” said Sacajawea. “But I go, too! No want to stay here now. No can stay!”
“But here is your village, Sacajawea—this is your home, where you must live. You will be happier here. See now, when I sleep safe at night, I shall say, ‘It was Sacajawea showed me the way. We did not go astray—we went straight.’ We will not forget who led us.”
“But,” she still expostulated, looking up at him, “how can you cook? How can you make the lodge? One woman—she must help all time.”
A spasm of pain crossed Lewis’s face.
“Sacajawea,” said he, “I told you that I had made medicine—that I had promised my dream never to have a lodge of my own. Always I shall live upon the trail—no lodge fire in any village shall be the place for me. And I told you I had made a vow to my dream that no woman should light the lodge fire for me. You are a princess—the daughter of a chief, the sister of a chief, a great person; you know about a warrior’s medicine. Surely, then, you know that no one is allowed to ask about the vows of a chief!
“By and by,” he added gently, “a great many white men will come here, Sacajawea. They will find you here. They will bring you gifts. You will live here long, and your baby will grow to be a man, and his children will live here long. But now I must go to my people.”
The unwonted tears of an Indian woman were in the eyes which looked up at him.
“Ah!” said she, in reproach. “I went with you. I cooked in the lodges. I showed the way. I was as one of your people. Now I say I go to your people, and you say no. You need me once—you no need me now! You say to me, your people are not my people—you not need Sacajawea any more!”
The Indian has no word for good-by. The faithful—nay, loving—girl simply turned away and passed from him; nor did he ever see her more.
Alone, apart from her people, she seated herself on the brink of the bluff, below which lay the boats, ready to depart. She drew her blanket over her head. When at length the voyage had begun, she did not look out once to watch them pass. They saw her motionless figure high on the bank above them. The Bird Woman was mourning.
The little Indian dog, Meriwether Lewis’s constant companion, now, like Sacajawea, mercifully banished, sat at her side, as motionless as she. Both of them, mute and resigned, accepted their fate.
But as for those others, those hardy men, now homeward bound, they were rejoicing. Speed was the cry of all the lusty paddlers, who, hour after hour, kept the boats hurrying down, aided by the current and sometimes pushed forward by favorable winds. They were upon the last stretch of their wonderful journey. Speed, early and late, was all they asked. They were going home—back over the trail they had blazed for their fellows!
“Capitaine, Capitaine, look what I’ll found!”
They were halting at noonday, far down the Missouri, for the boiling of the kettles. Lewis lay on his robes, still too lame to walk, watching his men as they scattered here and there after their fashion. It was Cruzatte who approached him, looking at something which the voyager held in his hand.
“What is it, Cruzatte?” smiled Lewis.
He was anxious always to be as kindly as possible to this unlucky follower, whose terrible mistake had well-nigh resulted in the death of the leader.
“Ouch, by gar! She’ll bite me with his tail. She’s hot!”
Cruzatte held out in his fingers a small but fateful object. It was a bee, an ordinary honey-bee. East of the Mississippi, in Illinois, Kentucky, the Virginias, it would have meant nothing. Here on the great plains it meant much.
Meriwether Lewis held the tiny creature in the palm of his hand.
“Why did you kill it, Cruzatte?” he asked. “It was on its errand.”
He turned to his friend who sat near, at the other side.
“Will,” he said, “our expedition has succeeded. Here is the proof of it. The bee is following our path. They are coming!”
Clark nodded. Woodsmen as they both were, they knew well enough the Indian tradition that the bee is the harbinger of the coming of the white man. When he comes, the plow soon follows, and weeds grow where lately have been the flowers of the forest or the prairie.
They sat for a time looking at the little insect, which bore so fateful a message into the West. Reverently Lewis placed it in his collector’s case—the first bee of the plains.
“They are coming!” said he again to his friend.
CHAPTER XII
WHAT VOICE HAD CALLED?
They lay in camp far down the river whose flood had borne them on so rapidly. They had passed through the last of the dangerous country of the Sioux, defying the wild bands whose gantlet they had to run, but which they had run in safety. Ahead was only what might be called a pleasure journey, to the end of the river trail.
The men were happy as they lay about their fires, which glowed dully in the dusk. Each was telling what he presently was going to do, when he got his pay at old St. Louis, not far below.
William Clark, weary with the day’s labor, had excused himself and gone to his blankets. Lewis, the responsible head of the expedition, alone, aloof, silent, sat moodily looking into his fire, the victim of one of his recurring moods of melancholy.
He stirred at length and raised himself restlessly. It was not unusual for him to be sleepless, and always, while awake, he had with him the problems of his many duties; but at this hour something unwontedly disturbing had come to Meriwether Lewis.
He turned once more and bent down, as if figuring out some puzzle of a baffling trail. Picking up a bit of stick, he traced here and there, in the ashes at his feet, points and lines, as if it were some problem in geometry. Uneasy, strange of look, now and again he muttered to himself.
“Hoh!” he exclaimed at length, almost like an Indian, as if in some definite conclusion.
He had run his trail to the end, had finished the problem in the ashes.
“Hoh!” his voice again rumbled in his chest.
And now he threw his tracing-stick away. He sat, his head on one side, as if looking at some distant star. It seemed that he heard a voice calling to him in the night, so faintly that he could not be sure. His face, thin, gaunt, looked set and hard in the light of his little fire. Something stern, something wistful, too, showed in his eyes, frowning under the deep brows. Was Meriwether Lewis indeed gone mad? Had the hardships of the wilderness at last taken their toll of him—as had sometimes happened to other men?
He rose, limping a little, for he still was weak and stiff from his wound, though disdaining staff or crotched bough to lean upon. He looked about him cautiously.
The camp was slumbering. Here and there, stirred by the passing breeze, the embers of a little fire glowed like an eye in the dark. The men slept, some under their rude shelters, others in the open under the stars, each rolled in his robe, his rifle under the flap to keep it from the dew.
Meriwether Lewis knew the place of every man in the encampment. Ordway, Pryor, Gass—each of the three sergeants slept by his own mess fire, his squad around him. McNeal, Bratton, Shields, Cruzatte, Reuben Fields, Goodrich, Whitehouse, Coalter, Shannon—the captain knew where each lay, rolled up like a mummy. He had marked each when he threw down his bed-roll that night; for Meriwether Lewis was a leader of men, and no detail escaped him.
He passed now, stealthy as an Indian, along the rows of sleeping forms. His moccasined foot made no sound. Save for his uniform coat, he was clad as a savage himself; and his alert eye, his noiseless foot, might have marked him one. He sought some one of these—and he knew where lay the man he wished to find.
He stood beside him silently at last, looking down at the sleeping figure. The man lay a little apart from the others, for he was to stand second watch that night, and the second guard usually slept where he would not disturb the others when awakened for his turn of duty.
This man—he was long and straight in his blankets, and filled them well—suddenly awoke, and lay staring up. He had not been called, no hand had touched him, it was not yet time for guard relief; but he had felt a presence, even as he slept.
He stared up at a tall and motionless figure looking down. With a swift movement he reached for his rifle; but the next instant, even as he lay, his hand went to his forehead in salute. He was looking up into the face of his commander!
“Shannon!” He heard a hoarse voice command him. “Get up!”
George Shannon, the youngest of the party, sprang out of his bed half clad.
“Captain!” He saluted again. “What is it, sir?” he half whispered, as if in apprehension.
“Put on your jacket, Shannon. Come with me!”
Shannon obeyed hurriedly. Half stripped, he stood a fine figure of young manhood himself, lithe, supple, yet developed into rugged strength by his years of labor on the trail.
“What is it, Captain?” he inquired once more.
They were apart from the others now, in the shadows beyond Lewis’s fire. Shannon had caught sight of his leader’s countenance, noting the wildness of its look, its drawn and haggard lines.
His commander’s hand thrust in his face a clutch of papers, folded—letters, they seemed to be. Shannon could see the trembling of the hand that held them.
“You know what I want, Shannon! I want the rest of these—I want the last one of them! Give it to me now!”
The youth felt on his shoulder the grip of a hand hard as steel. He did not make any answer, but stood dumb, wondering what might be the next act of this man, who seemed half a madman.
“Five of them!” he heard the same hoarse voice go on. “There must be another—there must be one more, at least. You have done this—you brought these letters. Give me the last one of them! Why don’t you answer?” With sudden and violent strength Lewis shook the boy as a dog might a rat. “Answer me!”
“Captain, I cannot!” broke out Shannon.
“What? Then there is another?”
“I’ll not answer! I’ll stand my trial before court martial, if you please.”
Again the heavy hand on his shoulder.
“There will be no trial!” he heard the hoarse voice of his commander saying. “I cannot sleep. I must have the last one. There is another!”
Shannon laid a hand on the iron wrist.
“How do you know?” he faltered. “Why do you think——”
“Am I not your leader? Is it not my business to know? I am a woodsman. You thought you had covered your trail, but it was plain. I know you are the messenger who has been bringing these letters to me from her. I need not name her, and you shall not! For what reason you did this—by what plan—I do not know, but I know you did it. You were absent each time that I found one of these letters. That was too cunning to be cunning! You are young, Shannon, you have something to learn. You sing songs—love songs—you write letters—love letters, perhaps! You are Irish—you have sentiment. There is romance about you—you are the man she would choose to do what you have done. Being a woman, she knew, she chose well; but it is my business to read all these signs.
“Give me that letter! I am your officer.”
“Captain, I will not!”
“I tell you I cannot sleep! Give it to me, boy, or, by Heaven, you yourself shall sleep the long sleep here and now! What? You still refuse?”
“Yes, I’ll not be driven to it. You say I’m Irish. I am—I’ll not give up a woman’s secret—it’s a question of honor, Captain. There is a woman concerned, as you know.”
“Yes!”
“And I promised her, too. I swear I never planned any wrong to either of you. I would die at your order now, as you know; but you have no right to order this, and I’ll not answer!”
The hand closed at his throat. The boy could not speak, but still Meriwether Lewis growled on at him.
“Shannon! Speak! Why have you kept secrets from your commanding officer? You have begun to tell me—tell me all!”
The boy’s hand clutched at his leader’s wrists. At length Lewis loosed him.
“Captain,” began the victim, “what do you mean? What can I do?”
“I will tell you what I mean, Shannon. I promised to care for you and bring you back safe to your parents. You’ll never see your parents again, save on one condition. I trusted you, thought you had special loyalty for me. Was I wrong?”
“On my honor, Captain,” the boy broke out, “I’d have died for you any time, and I’d do it now! I’ve worked my very best. You’re my officer, my chief!”
With one movement, Meriwether Lewis flung off the uniform coat that he wore. They stood now, man to man, stripped, and neither gave back from the other.
“Shannon,” said Lewis, “I’m not your officer now. I’m going to choke the truth out of you. Will you fight me, or are you afraid?”
The last cruelty was too much. The boy began to gulp.
“I’m not afraid to fight, sir. I’d fight any man, but you—no, I’ll not do it! Even stripped, you’re my commander still.”
“Is that the reason?”
“Not all of it. You’re weak, Captain, your wound has you in a fever. ’Twould not be fair—I could do as I liked with you now. I’ll not fight you. I couldn’t!”
“What? You will not obey me as your officer, and will not fight me as a man? Do you want to be whipped? Do you want to be shot? Do you want to be drummed out of camp tomorrow morning? By Heaven, Private Shannon, one of these choices will be yours!”
But something of the icy silence of the youth who heard these terrible words gave pause even to the madman that was Meriwether Lewis now. He halted, his hooked hands extended for the spring upon his opponent.
“What is it, boy?” he whispered at last. “What have I done? What did I say?”
Shannon was sobbing now.
“Captain,” he said, and thrust a hand into the bosom of his tunic—“Captain, for Heaven’s sake, don’t do that! Don’t apologize to me. I understand. Leave me alone. Here’s the letter. There were six—this is the last.”
Lewis’s strained muscles relaxed, his blazing eyes softened.
“Shannon!” he whispered once more. “What have I done?”
He took the letter in his hand, but did not look at it, although his fingers could feel the seal unbroken.
“Why do you give it to me now, boy?” he asked at length. “What changed you?”
“Because it’s orders, sir. She ordered me—that is, she asked me—to give you these letters at times when you seemed to need them most—when you were sick or in trouble, when anything had gone wrong. We couldn’t figure so far on ahead when I ought to give you each one. I had to do my best. I didn’t know at first, but now I see that you’re sick. You’re not yourself—you’re in trouble. She told me not to let you know who carried them,” he added rather inconsequently. “She said that that might end it all. She thought that you might come back.”
“Come back—when?”
“She didn’t know—we couldn’t any of us tell—it was all a guess. All this about the letters was left to me, to do my best. I couldn’t ask you, Captain, or any one. I don’t know what was in the letters, sir, and I don’t ask you, for that’s not my business; but I promised her.”
“What did she promise you?”
“Nothing. She didn’t promise me pay, because she knew I wouldn’t have done it for pay. She only looked at me, and she seemed sad, I don’t know why. I couldn’t help but promise her. I gave her my word of honor, because she said her letters might be of use to you, but that no one else must know that she had written them.”
“When was all this?”
“At St. Louis, just before we started. I reckon she picked me out because she thought I was especially close to you. You know I have been so.”
“Yes, I know, Shannon.”
“I thought I was doing something for you. You see, she told me that her name must not be mentioned, that no one must know about this, because it would hurt a woman’s reputation. She thought the men might talk, and that would be bad for you. I could not refuse her. Do you blame me now?”
“No, Shannon. No! In all this there is but one to blame, and that is your officer, myself!”
“I did not think there was any harm in my getting the letters to you, Captain. I knew that lady was your friend. I know who she is. She was more beautiful than any woman in St. Louis when we were there—more a lady, somehow. Of course, I’m not an officer or a gentleman—I’m only a boy from the backwoods, and only a private soldier. I couldn’t break my promise to her, and I couldn’t very well obey your orders unless I did. If I’ve broken any of the regulations you can punish me. You see, I held back this letter—I gave it to you now because I had the feeling that I ought to—that she would want me to. It is the fever, sir!”
“Aye, the fever!”
Silence fell as they stood there in the night. The boy went on, half tremblingly:
“Please, please, Captain Lewis, don’t call me a coward! I don’t believe I am. I was trying to do something for you—for both of you. It was always on my mind about these letters. I did my best and now——”
And now it was the eye of Meriwether Lewis that suddenly was wet; it was his voice that trembled.
“Boy,” said he, “I am your officer. Your officer asks your pardon. I have tried myself. I was guilty. Will you forget this?”
“Not a word to a soul in the world, Captain!” broke out Shannon. “About a woman, you see, we do not talk.”
“No, Mr. Shannon, about a woman we gentlemen do not talk. But now tell me, boy, what can I do for you—what can I ever do for you?”
“Nothing in the world, Captain—but just one thing.”
“What is it?”
“Please, sir, tell me that you don’t think me a coward!”
“A coward? No, Shannon, you are the bravest fellow I ever met!”
The hand on the boy’s shoulder was kindly now. The right hand of Captain Meriwether Lewis sought that of Private George Shannon. The madness of the trail, of the wilderness—the madness of absence and of remorse—had swept by, so that Lewis once more was officer, gentleman, just and generous man.
Shannon stooped and picked up the coat that his captain had cast from him. He held it up, and aided his commander again to don it. Then, saluting, he marched off to his bivouac bed.
From that day to the end of his life, no one ever heard George Shannon mention a word of this episode. Beyond the two leaders of the party, none of the expedition ever knew who had played the part of the mysterious messenger. Nor did any one know, later, whence came the funds which eventually carried George Shannon through his schooling in the East, through his studies for the bar, and into the successful practise which he later built up in Kentucky’s largest city.
Meriwether Lewis, limp and lax now, shivering in the chill under the reaction from his excitement, turned away, stepped back to his own lodge, and contrived a little light, after the frontier fashion—a rag wick in a shallow vessel of grease. With this uncertain aid he bent down closer to read the finely written lines, which ran:
My Friend:
This is my last letter to you. This is the one I have marked Number Six—the last one for my messenger.
Yes, since you have not returned, now I know you never can. Rest well, then, sir, and let me be strong to bear the news when at length it comes, if it ever shall come. Let the winds and the waters sound your requiem in that wilderness which you loved more than me—which you loved more than fame or fortune, honor or glory for yourself. The wilderness! It holds you. And for me—when at last I come to lay me down, I hope, too, some wilderness of wood or waters will be around me with its vast silences.
After all, what is life? Such a brief thing! Little in it but duty done well and faithfully. I know you did yours while you lived. I have tried to do mine. It has been hard for me to see what was duty. If I knew as absolute truth that conviction now in my heart—that you never can come back—how then could I go on?
Meriwether—Merne—Merne—I have been calling to you! Have you not heard me? Can you not hear me now, calling to you across all the distances to come back to me? I cannot give you up to the world, because I have loved you so much for myself. It was a cruel fate that parted us—more and more I know that, even as more and more I resolve to do what is my duty. But, oh, I miss you! Come back to me—to one who never was and never can be, but is——
Yours,
Theodosia.
It took him long to read this letter. At last his trembling hand dropped the creased and broken sheets. The guttering light went out. The men were silent, sleeping near their fires. The peace of the great plains lay all about.
She had said it—had said that last fated word. Now indeed he knew what voice had called to him across the deeps!
He reflected now that all these messages had been written to him before he left her; and that when he saw her last she was standing, tears in her eyes, outraged by the act of the man whom she had trusted—nay, whom she had loved!
CHAPTER XIII
THE NEWS
A horseman rode furiously over the new road from Fort Bellefontaine to St. Louis village. He carried news. The expedition of Lewis and Clark had returned!
Yes, these men so long thought lost, dead, were coming even now with their own story, with their proofs. The boats had passed Charette, had passed Bellefontaine, and presently would be pulling up the river to the water front of St. Louis itself.
“Run, boys!” cried Pierre Chouteau to his servants. “Call out the people! Tell them to ring the bells—tell them to fire the guns at the fort yonder. Captains Lewis and Clark have come back again—those who were dead!”
The little settlement was afire upon the instant. Laughing, talking, ejaculating, weeping in their joy, the people of St. Louis hurried out to meet the men whose voyage meant so much.
At last they saw them coming, the paddles flashing in unison in the horny hands which tirelessly drove the boats along the river. They could see them—men with long beards, clad in leggings of elk hide, moccasins of buffalo and deer; their head-dresses those of the Indians, their long hair braided. And see, in the prow of the foremost craft sat two men, side by side—Lewis and Clark, the two friends who had arisen as if from the grave!
“Present arms!” rang out a sharp command, as the boats lined up along the wharf.
The brown and scarred rifles came to place.
“Aim! Fire!”
The volley of salutation blazed out even with the chorus of the voyageurs’ cheers. And cheers repeated and unceasing greeted them as they stepped from their boats to the wharf. In an instant they were half overpowered.
“Come with me!”
“No, with me!”
“With me!”
A score of eager voices of the first men of St. Louis claimed the privilege of hospitality for them. It was almost by force that Pierre Chouteau bore them away to his castle on the hill. And always questions, questions, came upon them—ejaculations, exclamations.
“Ma foi!” exclaimed more than one pretty French maiden. “Such men—such splendid men—savages, yet white! See! See!”
They had gone away as youths, these two captains; they had come back men. Four thousand miles out and back they had gone, over a country unmapped, unknown; and they brought back news—news of great, new lands. Was it any wonder that they stood now, grave and dignified, feeling almost for the first time the weight of what they had done?
They passed over the boat-landing and across the wharf, approaching the foot of the rocky bluff above which lay the long street of St. Louis. Silent, as was his wont, Meriwether Lewis had replied to most of the greetings only with the smile which so lighted up his face. But now, suddenly, he ceased even to smile. His eye rested not upon the faces of those acclaiming friends, but upon something else beyond them.
Yes, there it was—the old fur-shed, the storage-house of the traders here on the wharf, just as he had left it two years before! The door was closed. What lay beyond it?
Lewis shuddered, as if caught with chill, as he looked at yonder door. Just there she had stood, more than two years ago, when he started out on this long journey. There he had kissed that face which he had left in tears—he saw it now! All the glory of his safe return, all the wonderful results which it must mean, he would have given now, could he have had back that picture for a different making.
“My matches—my thermometers—my instruments—how did they perform?”
The speaker was Dr. Saugrain, eager to meet again his friends.
“Perfect, doctor, perfect! We have some of the matches yet. As to the thermometers, we broke the last one before we reached the sea.”
“You found the sea? Mon Dieu!”
“We found the Pacific. We found the Columbia, the Yellowstone—many new rivers. We have found a new continent—made a new geography. We passed the head of the Missouri. We found three great mountain ranges.”
“The beaver—did you find the beaver yonder?” demanded the voice of a swarthy man who had attended them.
It was Manuel Liza, fur-trader, his eyes glowing in his interest in that reply.
“Beaver?” William Clark waved a hand. “How many I could not tell you! Thousands and millions—more beaver than ever were known in the world before. Millions of buffalo—elk in droves—bears such as you never saw—antelope, great horned sheep, otters, muskrat, mink—the greatest fur country in all the world. We could not tell you half!”
“Your men, will they be free to make return up the river with trading parties?”
William Clark smiled at the keenness of the old French trader.
“You could not possibly have better men,” said he.
The men themselves shook their heads in despair. Yes, they said, they had found a thousand miles of country ready to be plowed. They had found any quantity of hardwood forests and pine groves. They had seen rivers packed with fish until they were half solid—more fish than ever were in all the world before. They had found great rivers which led far back to the heart of the continent. They had seen trees larger than any man ever had seen—so large that they hardly could be felled by an ax.
They had found a country where in the winter men perished, and another where the winters were not cold, and where the bushes grew high as trees. They had found all manner of new animals never known before—in short, a new world. How could they tell of it?
“Captain,” inquired Chouteau at length, “your luggage, your boxes—where are they?”
Meriwether Lewis pointed to a skin parfleche and a knotted bandanna handkerchief which George Shannon carried for him.
“That is all I have left,” said he. “But the mail for the East—the mail, M. Chouteau—we must get word to the President!”
“The President has long ago been advised of your death,” said Chouteau, laughing. “All the world has said good-by to you. No doubt you can read your own obituaries.”
“We bring them better news than that. What news for us?” asked the two captains of their host.
“News!” The voluble Frenchman threw up his hands. “Nothing but news! The entire world is changed since you left. I could not tell you in a month. The Burr duel——”
“Yes, we did not know of it for two years,” said William Clark. “We have just heard about it, up river.”
“The killing of Mr. Hamilton ended the career of Colonel Burr,” said Chouteau. “But for that we might have different times here in Mississippi. He had many friends. But you have heard the last news regarding him?”
It was the dark eye of Meriwether Lewis which now compelled his attention.
“No? Well, he came out here through this country once more. He was arrested last summer, on the Natchez Trace, and carried off to Washington. The charge is treason against his government. The country is full of it—his trial is to be at Richmond. Even now it may be going on.”
He did not notice the sudden change in Meriwether Lewis’s face.
“And all the world is swimming in blood across the sea,” went on their garrulous informant. “Napoleon and Great Britain are at war again. Were it not so, one or the other of them would be at the gates of New Orleans, that is sure. This country is still discontented. There was much in the plan of Colonel Burr to separate this valley into a country of its own, independent—to force a secession from the republic, even though by war on the flag. Indeed, he was prepared for that; but now his conspiracy is done. Perhaps, however, you do not hold with the theory of Colonel Burr?”
“Hold with the theory of Colonel Burr, sir?” exclaimed the deep voice of Meriwether Lewis. “Hold with it? This is the first time I have known what it was. It was treason! If he had any join him, that was in treason! He sought to disrupt this country? Agree with him? What is this you tell me? I had never dreamed such a thing as possible of him!”
“He had many friends,” went on Chouteau; “very many friends. They are scattered even now all up and down this country—men who will not give up their cause. All those men needed was a leader.”
“But, M. Chouteau,” rejoined Lewis, “I do not understand—I cannot! What Colonel Burr attempted was an actual treason to this republic. I find it difficult to believe that!”
Chouteau shrugged his shoulders.
“There may be two names for it,” he said.
“And every one asked to join the cause was asked to join in treason to his country. Is it not so?” Lewis went on.
“There may be two names for it,” smiled the other, still shrugging.
“He was my friend,” said Meriwether Lewis. “I trusted him!”
“Always, I repeat, there are two names for treason. But what puzzles me is this,” Chouteau continued. “What halted the cause of Colonel Burr here in the West? He seemed to be upon the point of success. His organization was complete—his men were in New Orleans—he had great lands purchased as a rendezvous below. He had understandings with foreign powers, that is sure. Well, then, here is Colonel Burr at St. Louis, all his plans arranged. He is ready to march, to commence his campaign, to form this valley into a great kingdom, with Mexico as part of it. He was a man able to make plans, believe me. But of all this there comes—nothing! Why? At the last point something failed—no one knew what. He waited for something—no one knew what. Something lacked—no one can tell what. And all the time—this is most curious to me—I learned it through others—Colonel Burr was eager to hear something of the expedition of Lewis and Clark into the West. Why? No one knows! Does no one know?”
The captain did not speak, and Chouteau presently went on.
“Why did Colonel Burr hesitate, why did he give up his plans here—why, indeed, did he fail? You ask me why these things were? I say, it was because of you—messieurs, you two young men, with your Lewis and Clark Expedition! It was you who broke the Burr Conspiracy—for so they call it in these days. Messieurs, that is your news!”
CHAPTER XIV
THE GUESTS OF A NATION
“
Attention, men!”
The company of Volunteers for the Discovery of the West fell into line in front of the stone fortress of old St. Louis. A motley crew they looked in their half-savage garb. They were veterans, fit for any difficult undertaking in the wilderness. Shoulder to shoulder they had labored in the great enterprise. Now they were to disband.
Their leaders had laid aside the costume of the frontier and assumed the uniforms of officers in the army of the United States. Fresh from his barber and his tailor, Captain Lewis stood, tall, clean-limbed, immaculate, facing his men. His beard was gone, his face showed paler where it had been reaped. His hair, grown quite long, and done now in formal cue, hung low upon his shoulders. In every line a gentleman, an officer, and a thoroughbred, he no longer bore any trace of the wilderness. Love, confidence, admiration—these things showed in the faces of his men as their eyes turned to him.
“Men,” said he, “you are to be mustered out today. There will be given to each of you a certificate of service in this expedition. It will entitle you to three hundred and twenty acres of land, to be selected where you like west of the Mississippi River. You will have double pay in gold as well; but it is not only in this way that we seek to show appreciation of your services.
“We have concluded a journey of considerable length and importance. Between you and your officers there have been such relations as only could have made successful a service so extraordinary as ours has been. In our reports to our own superior officers we shall have no words save those of praise for any of you. Our expedition has succeeded. To that success you have all contributed. Your officers thank you.
“Captain Clark will give you your last command, men. As I say farewell to you, I trust I may not be taken to mean that I separate myself from you in my thoughts or memories. If I can ever be of service to any of you, you will call upon me freely.”
He turned and stepped aside. His place was taken by his associate, William Clark, likewise a soldier, an officer, properly attired, and all the figure of a proper man. Clark’s voice rang sharp and clear.
“Attention! Aim—fire! Break ranks—march!”
The last volley of the gallant little company was fired. The last order had been given and received. With a sweep of his drawn sword, Captain Clark dismissed them. The expedition was done.
So now they went their way, most of them into oblivion, great though their services had been. For their officers much more remained to do.
The progress to Washington was a triumph. Everywhere their admiring countrymen were excited over their marvelous journey. They were fêted and honored at every turn. The country was ringing with their praises from the Mississippi to the Atlantic as the news spread eastward just ahead of them.
When at last they finished their adieux to the kindly folk of St. Louis, who scarce would let them go, they took boat across the river to the old Kaskaskia trail, and crossed the Illinois country by horse to the Falls of the Ohio, where the family of William Clark awaited him. Here was much holiday, be sure; but not even here did they pause long, for they must be on their way to meet their chief at Washington.
Their little cavalcade, growing larger now, passed on across Kentucky, over the gap in the Cumberlands, down into the country of the Virginia gentry. Here again they were fêted and dined and wined so long as they would tarry. It was specially difficult for them to leave Colonel Hancock, at Fincastle. Here they must pause and tell how they had named certain rivers in the West—the one for Maria Woods; another for Judith Hancock—the Maria’s and Judith Rivers of our maps today.
Here William Clark delayed yet a time. He found in the charms of the fair Judith herself somewhat to give him pause. Soon he was to take her as his bride down the Ohio to yonder town of St. Louis, for whose fame he had done so much, and was to do so much more.
Toward none of the fair maids who now flocked about them could Meriwether Lewis be more than smiling gallant, though rumors ran that either he or William Clark might well-nigh take his pick. He was alike to all of them in his courtesy.
One thought of eager and unalloyed joy rested with him. He was soon to see his mother. In time he rode down from the hilltops of old Albemarle to the point beyond the Ivy Depot where rose the gentle eminence of Locust Hill, the plantation of the Lewis family.
Always in the afternoon, in all weathers, his mother sat looking down the long lane to the gate, as if she expected that one day a certain figure would appear. Sometimes, old as she was, she dozed and dreamed—just now she had done so. She awoke, and saw standing before her, as if pictured in her dream, the form of her son, in bodily presence, although at first she did not accept him as such.
“My son!” said she at length, half as much in terror as in joy. “Merne!”
He stooped down and took her grayed head in his hands as she looked up at him. She recalled other times when he had come from the forest, from the wilderness, bearing trophies in his hands. He bore now trophies greater, perhaps, than any man of his age ever had brought home with him. What Washington had defended was not so great as that which Lewis won. It required them both to make an America for us haggling and unworthy followers.
“My son!” was all she could say. “They told me that you never would come back, that you were dead. I thought the wilderness had claimed you at last, Merne!”
“I told you I should come back to you safe, mother. There was no danger at any time. From St. Louis I have come as fast as any messenger could have come. Next I must go to see Mr. Jefferson at Washington—then, back home again to talk with you, for long, long hours.”
“And what have you found?”
“More than I can tell you in a year! We found the mysterious river, the Columbia—found where it runs into the ocean, where it starts in the mountains. We found the head of the Missouri—the Ohio is but a creek beside it. We crossed plains and mountains more wonderful than any we have ever dreamed of. We saw the most wonderful land in all the world, mother—and we made it ours!”
“And you did that? Merne, was that why the wilderness called to you? My boy has done all that? Your country will reward you. I should not complain of all these years of absence. You are happy now, are you not?”
“I should be the happiest of men. I can take to Mr. Jefferson, our best friend, the proof that he was right in his plans. His great dream has come true, and I in some part helped to make it true. Should I not now be happy?”
“You should be, Merne, but are you?”
“I am well, and I find you still well and strong. My friend, Will Clark, has come back with me hearty as a boy. Everything has been fortunate with us. Look at me,” he demanded, turning and stretching out his mighty arms. “I am strong. My men all came through without loss or injury—the splendid fellows! It is wonderful that in risks such as ours we met with no ill fortune.”
“Yes, but are you happy? Turn your face to me.”
But he did not turn his face.
“I told my friend, William Clark,” he said lightly, as he rose, “to join me here after an hour or so. I think I see his party coming now. York rides ahead, do you see? He is a free negro now—he will have stories enough to set all our blacks idle for a month. I must go down to meet Will and our other guests.”
William Clark, bubbling over with his own joy of life, set all the household in a whirl. There was nothing but cooking, festivity, dancing, hilarity, so long as he remained at Locust Hill.
But the mother of Meriwether Lewis looked with jealous eye on William Clark. Success, glory, honor, fame, reward—these now belonged to Meriwether Lewis, to them both, his mother knew. But why did not his laugh sound high like that of his friend? Her eyes followed her son daily, hourly, until at last she surrendered him to his duty when he declared he could no longer delay his journey to Washington.
Spick and span, cap-a-pie, pictures of splendid young manhood, the two captains rode one afternoon up to the great gate before the mansion house of the nation. Lewis looked about him at scenes once familiar; but in the three years and a half since he had seen it last the raw town had changed rapidly.
Workmen had done somewhat upon the Capitol building yonder, certain improvements had been made about the Executive Mansion itself; but the old negro men at the gate and at the door of the house were just as he had left them. And when, running on ahead of his companion, he knocked at Mr. Jefferson’s office door—flinging it open, as he did so, with the freedom of his old habit—he looked in upon a familiar sight.
Thomas Jefferson was sitting bent over his desk, as usual littered with a thousand papers. The long frame of his multigraph copying-machine was at one side. Folded documents lay before him, unfinished briefs upon the other side; a rack of goose quills and an open inkpot stood beyond. And on the top of the desk, spread out long and over all, lay a great map, whose identity these two young men easily could tell—the Lewis and Clark map sent back from the Mandan country! Thomas Jefferson had kept it at his desk every day since it had come to him, more than two years before.
He turned now toward the door, casually, for he was used to the interruptions of his servants. What he saw brought him to his feet. He spread out his arms impulsively—he shook the hand of each in turn, drew them to him before he motioned them to seats. Never had Meriwether Lewis seen such emotion displayed by his chief.
“I could hardly wait for you!” said Mr. Jefferson. He began to pace up and down. “I knew it, I knew it!” he exclaimed. “Now they will call us constitutional, perhaps, since we have added a new world to our country! My son, that was our vision. You have proved it. You have been both dreamer and doer!”
He came up and placed a half playful hand on Meriwether Lewis’s shoulder.
“Did I know men, then?” he demanded.
“And did I, Mr. Jefferson? Captain Clark——”
“You do not say the title correctly! It is not Captain Clark, it is not Captain Lewis, that stand before me now. You are to have sixteen hundred acres of land, each of you. You, my son, will be Governor Lewis of the new Territory of Louisiana; and your friend is not Captain Clark but General Clark, agent of all the Indian tribes of the West!”
In silence the hand of each of the young men went out to the President. Then their own eyes met, and their hands. They were not to be separated after all—they were to work together yonder in St. Louis!
“Governor—General—I welcome you back! You will come back to your old rooms here in my family, Merne, and we will find a place for your friend. What we have here is at the service of both of you. You are the guests of the nation!”