Immediately after his appointment in charge of Indian affairs, Clark

left Washington, with Pryor and Shannon, Big White and Jussaume and

their Indian families. The Ohio, swollen to the highest notch, bore

them racing into the Mississippi.

"Manuel Lisa haf gone up de Meessouri," was the news at St. Louis. All

winter Manuel Lisa had been flying around St. Louis with Pierre Menard

and George Drouillard, preparing for an early ascent into the fur

country. So also had been the Chouteaus, intending to escort Big White

back to the Mandans.

At any time an Indian trader was a great man in St. Louis. He could

command fabulous prices for his skill, and still more now could

Drouillard, fresh from the unexploited land beyond the Mandans. All

his money Drouillard put into the business, and with the earliest

opening of 1807, Lisa, Menard and Drouillard set out for the upper

Missouri with an outfit of sixteen thousand dollars.

"Wait for the Mandan chief," said Frederick Bates, the new Territorial

Secretary.

Manuel Lisa was not a man to wait. "While others consider whether they

will start, I am on my way," he answered.

Dark, secret, unfathomable, restless, enterprising, a very Spaniard

for pride, distrusted and trusted, a judge of men, Manuel Lisa had in

him the spirit of De Soto and Coronado.

For twenty years Lisa had traded with Indians. Of late the Spanish

government had given him exclusive rights on the Osage, a privilege

once held by the Chouteaus, but alas for Lisa! a right now tumbled by

the cession. For the United States gave no exclusive privileges.

He reached the ear of Drouillard; they went away together. No one

better than Lisa saw the meaning of that great exploration.

Coincidently with the arrival of Clark and Big White out of the Ohio,

came down a deputation of Yankton Sioux with old Dorion from the

Missouri. With that encampment of Indians, around, behind, before the

Government House, began the reign of the Red Head chief over the

nations of the West that was to last for thirty years. St. Louis

became the Red Head's town, and the Red Head's signature came to be

known to the utmost border of Louisiana.

"We want arms and traders," said the Yankton Sioux.

Both were granted, and laden with presents, before the close of May

they were dispatched again to their own country. And with them went

Big White in charge of Ensign Pryor, Sergeant George Shannon, and

Pierre Chouteau, with thirty-two men for the Mandan trade.

Even the Kansas knew that Big White had gone down the river, and were

waiting to see him go by.

"The whites are as the grasses of the prairie," said Big White.

In July the new Governor, Meriwether Lewis, arrived and assumed the

Government. With difficulty the officers had endeavoured to harmonise

the old and the new. All was in feud, faction, disorder.

St. Louis was a foreign village before the cession. Nor was this

changed in a day.

"Deed not de great Napoleon guarantee our leebertee?" said the French.

"We want self-government."

But Lewis and Clark, these two had met the French ideal of chivalry in

facing the Shining Mountains and the Ocean. Pretty girls sat in the

verandas to see them pass. Fur magnates set out their choicest viands.

The conquest of St. Louis was largely social. With less tact and less

winning personalities we might have had discord.

Whatever Lewis wanted, Clark seconded as a sort of Lieutenant

Governor. It seemed as if the two might go on forever as they had done

in the great expedition. Ever busy, carving districts that became

future States, laying out roads, dispensing justice and treating with

Indians, all went well until the 16th of October, when a wave of

sensation swept over St. Louis.

"Big White, the Mandan chief, is back. The American flag at the bow of

his boat has been fired on and he is compelled to fall back on St.

Louis."

All summer the vengeful Arikaras had been watching.

"They killed our chief, the Brave Raven."

The Teton Sioux plotted. "They will give the Mandans arms and make our

enemies stronger than we are." So in great bands, Sioux and Arikaras

had camped along the river to intercept the returning brave.

"These are the machinations of the British," said Americans in St.

Louis.

"This is a trick of Manuel Lisa," said the fur traders. "His boats

passed in safety, why not ours?"

In fact, there had been a battle. Not with impunity should trade be

carried into the land of anarchy. Three men were killed and several

wounded, including Shannon and René Jussaume. And they in turn had

killed Black Buffalo, the Teton chief that led the onslaught.

All the way down the Missouri George Shannon had writhed with his

wounded knee. Blood poisoning set in. They left him at Bellefontaine.

"Dees leg must come off," said Dr. Saugrain, the army surgeon.

He sent for Dr. Farrar, a young American physician who had lately

located in St. Louis. Together, without anesthetics, they performed

the first operation in thigh amputation ever known in that region.

"Woonderful! woonderful!" exclaimed the Creoles. "Dees Dogtors can cut

une man all up." Great already was the reputation of Dr. Saugrain; to

young Farrar it gave a prestige that made him the Father of St. Louis

surgery.

Shannon lay at the point of death for eighteen months, but youth

rallied, and he regained sufficient strength to journey to Lexington,

where he took up the study of law. He lived to become an eminent

jurist and judge, and the honoured progenitor of many distinguished

bearers of his name.

III

_FAREWELL TO FINCASTLE_

General Clark had had a busy summer, travelling up and down the river,

assisting the Governor at St. Louis in reducing his tumultuous domain

to order, treating with Indians, conferring with Governor Harrison in

his brick palace at Old Vincennes, consulting with his brothers,

General Jonathan and General George Rogers Clark at the Point of Rock.

Now, in mid-autumn, he was again on his way to Fincastle.

Never through the tropic summer had Julia been absent from his

thoughts. A little house in St. Louis had been selected that should

shelter his bride; and now, as fast as hoof and horse could speed him,

he was hastening back to fix the day for his wedding.

October shed glory on the burnished forests. Here and there along the

way shone primitive farmhouses, the homes of people. The explorer's

heart beat high. He had come to that time in his life when he, too,

should have a home. Those old Virginia farmhouses, steep of roof and

sloping at the eaves, four rooms below and two in the attic, with

great chimneys smoking at either end, seemed to speak of other fond

and happy hearts.

The valley of Virginia extends from the Potomac to the Carolina line.

The Blue Ridge bounds it on one side, the Kittatinnys on the other,

and in the trough-like valley between flows the historic Shenandoah.

From the north, by Winchester, scene of many a border fray and

destined for action more heroic yet, Clark sped on his way to

Fincastle. Some changes had taken place since that eventful morning

when Governor Spotswood looked over the Blue Ridge. A dozen miles from

Winchester stood Lord Fairfax's Greenway Court, overshadowed by

ancient locusts, slowly mouldering to its fall. Here George Washington

came in his boyhood, surveying for the gaunt, raw-boned, near-sighted

old nobleman who led him hard chases at the fox hunt.

From the head spring of the Rappahannock to the head spring of the

Potomac, twenty-one counties of old Virginia once belonged to the

Fairfax manor, now broken and subdivided into a thousand homes. Hither

had come tides of Quakers, and Scotch-Presbyterians, penetrating

farther and farther its green recesses, cutting up the fruitful acres

into colonial plantations.

"The Shenandoah, it is the very centre of the United States," said the

emigrants.

The valley was said to be greener than any other, its waters were more

transparent, its soil more fruitful. At any rate German-Pennsylvanians

pushed up here, rearing barns as big as fortresses, flanked round with

haystacks and granaries. Now and then Clark met them, in loose leather

galligaskins and pointed hats, sunning in wide porches, smoking pipes

three feet long, while their stout little children tumbled among the

white clover.

Here and there negroes were whistling with notes as clear as a fife,

and huge Conestoga waggons loaded with produce rumbled along to

Philadelphia, Baltimore, Richmond. Every year thousands of waggons

went to market, camping at night and making the morning ring with

Robin Hood songs and jingling bells.

Yonder lived Patrick Henry in his last years, at picturesque Red Hill

on the Staunton. Here in his old age he might have been seen under the

trees in his lawn, buried in revery, or on the floor, with

grandchildren clambering over him or dancing to his violin.

But Clark was not thinking of Patrick Henry, or Fairfax,--in fact he

scarcely remembered their existence, so intent was his thought on his

maid of the mountains, Julia Hancock.

The leaves were falling from elm and maple, strewing the path with

gold and crimson. The pines grew taller in the twilight, until he

could scarcely see the bypaths chipped and blazed by settlers'

tomahawks.

Sunset was gilding the Peaks of Otter as Clark drew rein at the little

tavern near Fincastle.

"I was rented to the King of England by my Prince of Hesse Cassel,"

the Hessian proprietor was saying. "I was rented out to cut the

throats of people who had never done me any harm. Four pence three

farthings a day I got, and one penny farthing went to His Royal

Highness, the Prince. I fought you, then I fell in love with you, and

when the war was over I stayed in America."

Clark listened. It was a voice out of the Revolution.

After a hurried luncheon the tireless traveller was again in his

saddle; and late that night in the moonlight he opened the gate at

Colonel Hancock's.

York had followed silently through all the journey,--York, no longer a

slave, for in consideration of his services on the expedition the

General had given him his freedom. But as a voluntary body-guard he

would not be parted from his master.

"For sho'! who cud tek cah o' Mars Clahk so well as old Yawk?"

"What if love-lorn swains from a dozen plantations have tried to woo

and win my pretty cousin! The bronzed face of Lochinvar is bleaching,"

said the teasing Harriet when she heard that the wedding date was

really set. "One day, who knows, his skin may be white as yours."

Sudden as a flood in the Roanoke came Julia's tears. Relenting, the

lively, light-hearted Harriet covered her cousin's curls with kisses.

"The carriage and horses are at your service. Hunt, fish, lounge as

you please," said Colonel Hancock, "for I must be at the courthouse to

try an important case."

With thousands of acres and hundreds of negroes, it was the dream of

Colonel Hancock to one day drop these official cares and retire

altogether into the privacy of his plantation. Already, forty miles

away, at the very head spring of the Roanoke river, he was building a

country seat to be called "Fotheringay," after Fotheringay Castle.

Back and forth in the gorgeous October weather rode Clark and Julia,

watching the workmen at Fotheringay.

Now and then the carriage stopped at an orchard. Passers were always

at liberty to help themselves to the fruit. Peaches so abundant that

they fed the hogs with them, apples rosy and mellow, grapes for the

vintage, were in the first flush of abundance. What a contrast to that

autumn in the Bitter Root Mountains!

Then late in November to Fincastle came Governor Lewis and his brother

Reuben, on their way to the west. He, too, had been to Washington on

business concerning St. Louis.

"The great success of York among the Mandans has decided Reuben to

take Tom along," laughed Lewis, as Reuben's black driver dismounted

from the carriage--the same family chariot in which Meriwether had

brought his mother from Georgia, now on the way to become the state

coach of Louisiana.

Black Tom beamed, expansively happy, on York who had been "tuh th'

Injun country" where black men were "Great Medicine."

"Ha, Your Excellency," laughed the teasing Harriet, "the beauty of

Fincastle dines with us to-night,--Miss Letitia Breckenridge."

"Wait and the Governor will court you," some one whispered to the

charming Letitia.

"I have contemplated accompanying my father to Richmond for some

time," replied Letitia. "If I stay now it will look like a challenge,

therefore I determine to go."

Governor Lewis underwent not a little chafing when two days after his

arrival the lovely Letitia was gone,--to become the wife of the

Secretary of War in John Quincy Adams's cabinet.

"Miss Breckenridge is a very sweet-looking girl," wrote Reuben to his

sister, "and I should like to have her for a sister. General Clark's

intended is a charming woman. When I tell you that she is much like my

sweetheart you will believe I think so."

"What are you doing?" Clark asked of Julia, as she sat industriously

stitching beside the hickory fire in the great parlour at Fincastle.

"Working a little screen to keep the fire from burning my face,"

answered the maiden, rosy as the glow itself. Much more beautiful than

the little Sacajawea, stitching moccasins beside the fire at Clatsop,

she seemed to Clark; and yet the feminine intuition was the same, to

sew, to stitch, to be an artist with the needle.

"The mistletoe hung in Fincastle hall,

The holly branch shone on the old oak wall,

And the planter's retainers were blithe and gay,

A-keeping their Christmas holiday."

There was sleighing at Fincastle when the wedding day came, just after

New Year's, 1808. The guests came in sleighs from as far away as

Greenway Court, for all the country-side knew and loved Judy Hancock.

Weeping, soft-hearted Black Granny tied again the sunny curls and

looped the satin ribbons of her beloved "Miss Judy." The slaves vied

with one another, strewing the snow with winter greens that no foot

might touch the chill.

The wainscoted and panelled walls glowed with greenery. Holly hung

over the carved oaken chimneys, and around the fowling pieces and

antlers of the chase that betokened the hunting habits of Colonel

Hancock. Silver tankards marked with the family arms sparkled on the

damask table cloth, and silver candlesticks and snuffers and silver

plate. Myrtleberry wax candles gave out an incense that mingled with

the odour of hickory snapping in the fireplace.

"Exactly as her mother looked," whispered the grandmother when Judy

came down,--grandmother, a brisk little white-capped old lady in

quilted satin, who remembered very well the mother of Washington.

The stars hung blazing on the rim of the Blue Ridge and the snow

glistened, when out of the great house came the sound of music and

dancing. There were wedding gifts after the old Virginia fashion, and

when all had been inspected Clark handed his bride a small jewel case

marked with her name.

The cover flew open, revealing a set of topaz and pearls, "A gift from

the President."

Out into the snow went these wedding guests of a hundred years ago, to

scatter and be forgotten.

IV

_THE BOAT HORN_

All the romance of the old boating time was in Clark's wedding trip

down the Ohio. It was on a May morning when, stepping on board a

flatboat at Louisville, he contrasted the daintiness of Julia with

that of any other travelling companion he had ever known.

The river, foaming over its rocky bed, the boatmen blowing their long

conical bugles from shore to shore, the keelboats, flat-bottoms, and

arks loaded with emigrants all intent on "picking guineas from

gooseberry bushes," spoke of youth, life, action. Again the boatman

blew his bugle, echoes of other trumpets answered, "Farewell,

farewell, fare--we-ll." Soon they were into the full sweep of the

pellucid Ohio, mirroring skies and shores dressed in the livery of

Robin Hood.

Frowning precipices and green islets arose, and projecting headlands

indenting the Ohio with promontories like a chain of shining lakes.

Hills clothed in ancient timber, hoary whitened sycamores draped in

green clusters of mistletoe, and magnificent groves of the dark green

sugar tree reflected from the water below. Shut in to the water's

edge, a woody wilderness still, the river glided between its

umbrageous shores.

Now and then the crowing of cocks announced a clearing where the axe

of the settler had made headway, or some old Indian mound blossomed

with a peach orchard. Flocks of screaming paroquets alighted in the

treetops, humming birds whizzed into the honeysuckle vines and flashed

away with dewdrops on their jewelled throats.

On the water with them, now near, now far, were other boats,--ferry

flats and Alleghany skiffs, pirogues hollowed from prodigious

sycamores, dug-outs and canoes, stately barges with masts and sails

and lifted decks like schooners, keel boats, slim and trim for low

waters, Kentucky arks, broadhorns, roomy and comfortable, filled up

with chairs, beds, stoves, tables, bound for the Sangamon, Cape

Girardeau, Arkansas.

Floating caravans of men, women, children, servants, cattle, hogs,

horses, sheep, and fowl were travelling down the great river. Some

boats fitted up for stores dropped off at the settlements, blowing the

bugle, calling the inhabitants down to trade.

Here a tinner with his tinshop, with tools and iron, a floating

factory, there a blacksmith shop with bellows and anvil, dry-goods

boats with shelves for cutlery and cottons, produce boats with

Kentucky flour and hemp, Ohio apples, cider, maple sugar, nuts,

cheese, and fruit, and farther down, Tennessee cotton, Illinois corn,

and cattle, Missouri lead and furs, all bound for New Orleans, a

panorama of endless interest to Julia. Here white-winged schooners

were laden entirely with turkeys, tobacco, hogs, horses, potatoes, or

lumber. Nature pouring forth perennial produce from a hundred

tributary streams.

A bateau could descend from the mouth of the Ohio to New Orleans in

three weeks; three months of toil could barely bring it back. How

could boats be made to go against the current? Everywhere and everywhere

inventive minds were puzzling over motors, paddles--duck-foot,

goose-foot, and elliptical,--wings and sails, side-wheels,

stern-wheels, and screws,--and steam was in the air.

As the sun went down in lengthening shadows a purple haze suffused the

waters. Adown La Belle Rivière, "the loveliest stream that ever

glistened to the moon," arose the evening cadence of the boatmen,--

"Some row up, but we row down,

All the way to Shawnee Town,

Pull away! Pull away!

Pull away to Shawnee Town."

The crescent moon shone brightly on crag and stream and floating

forest, the air was mild and moist, the boat glided as in a dream, and

the mocking bird enchanted the listening silence.

To Clark no Spring had ever seemed so beautiful. Sitting on deck with

Julia he could not forget that turbulent time when as a boy he first

plunged down these waters. Symbolic of his whole life it seemed, until

now the storm and stress of youth had calmed into the placid current

of to-day. The past,--the rough toil-hardened past of William

Clark,--fell away, and as under a lifted silken curtain he floated

into repose. The rough old life of camps and forts was gone forever.

And to Julia, everything was new and strange,--La Belle Rivière itself

whispered of Louisiana. Like an Alpine horn the bugle echoed the

dreamlife of the waters.

The fiddles scraping, boatmen dancing, the smooth stream rolling

calmly through the forest, the girls who gathered on shore to see the

pageant pass, the river itself, momentarily lost to view, then leaping

again in Hogarth's line of beauty,--all murmured perpetual music.

Then slumber fell upon the dancers, but still Clark and Julia sat

watching. From clouds of owls arose voices of the night, cries of

wolves reverberated on shore, the plaintive whippoorwill in the

foliage lamented to the moon, meteors rose from the horizon to sweep

majestically aloft and burst in a showering spray of gems below.

The very heavens were unfamiliar. Awed, impressed, by the mysteries

around them, they slept.

Before sun-up the mocking-bird called from the highest treetop and

continued singing until after breakfast, imitating the jay, the

cardinal, and the lapwing, then sailing away into a strain of his own

wild music.

At the mouth of the Wabash arks were turning in to old Vincennes.

Below, broader grew the Ohio, unbroken forests still and twinkling

stars. Here and there arose the graceful catalpa in full flower, and

groves of cottonwoods so tall that at a distance one could fancy some

planter's mansion hidden in their depths. Amid these Eden scenes

appeared here and there the deserted cabin of some murdered woodman

whose secret only the Shawnee knew.

Wild deer, crossing the Ohio, heard the bugle call, and throwing their

long branching antlers on their shoulders sank out of sight, swimming

under the water until the shore opened into the sheltering forest.

At times the heavens were darkened with the flights of pigeons; there

was a song of the thrush and the echoing bellow of the big horned owl.

Wild turkeys crossed their path and wild geese screamed on their

journey to the lakes.

One day the boats stopped, and before her Julia beheld the Mississippi

sweeping with irresistible pomp and wrath, tearing at the shores,

bearing upon its tawny bosom the huge drift of mount and meadow, whole

herds of drowned buffalo, trunks of forest trees and caved-in banks of

silt, leaping, sweeping seaward in the sun. Without a pause the

bridegroom river reached forth his brawny arm, and gathered in the

starry-eyed Ohio. Over his Herculean shoulders waved her silver

tresses, deep into his bosom passed her gentle transparency as the

twain made one swept to the honeymoon.

All night Clark's bateau lay in a bend while York and the men kept off

the drift that seemed to set toward them in their little cove as

toward a magnet.

On the 26th of May Governor Lewis received a letter from Clark asking

for help up the river. Without delay the Governor engaged a barge to

take their things to Bellefontaine and another barge to accommodate

the General, his family and baggage.

Dispatching a courier over the Bellefontaine road, Governor Lewis sent

to Colonel Hunt a message, asking him to send Ensign Pryor to meet the

party.

With what delight Clark and his bride saw the barges with Ensign Pryor

in charge, coming down from St. Louis. Then came the struggle up the

turbulent river. Clark was used to such things, but never before had

he looked on them with a bride at his side. With sails and oars and

cordelles all at once, skilled hands paddled and poled and stemmed the

torrent, up, up to the rock of the new levee.

Thus the great explorer brought home his bride to St. Louis in that

never-to-be-forgotten May-time one hundred years ago.

V

_A BRIDE IN ST. LOUIS_

"An _Américaine_ bride, General Clark haf brought! She haf beeutiful

eyes! She haf golden hair!" The Creole ladies were in a flutter.

"_Merci!_ She haf a carriage!" they cried, peeping from their

lattices. Governor Lewis himself had met the party at the shore, and

now in the first state coach St. Louis had ever seen, was driving

along the Rue de l'Église to Auguste Chouteau's.

"_Merci!_ She haf maids enough!" whispered the gazers, as Rachel,

Rhody, Chloe, Sarah, brought up the rear with their mistress's

belongings. Then followed York, looking neither to the right nor the

left. He knew St. Louis was watching, and he delighted in the stir.

The fame of the beauty of General Clark's American bride spread like

wild-fire. For months wherever she rode or walked admiring crowds

followed, eager to catch a glimpse of her face. Thickly swathed in

veils, Julia concealed her features from the public gaze, but that

only increased the interest.

"She shall haf a party, une grande réception," said Pierre Chouteau,

and the demi-fortress was opened to a greater banquet than even at the

return of Lewis and Clark.

Social St. Louis abandoned itself to gaiety. Dancing slippers were at

a premium, and all the gay silks that ever came up from New Orleans

were refurbished with lace and jewels.

"They are beautiful women," said Julia that night. "I thought you told

me there were only Indians here."

Clark laughed. "Wait until you walk in the streets."

And sure enough, with the arrival of the beautiful Julia came also

certain Sacs and Iowas who had been scalping settlers within their

borders. With bolted handcuffs and leg shackles they were shut up in

the old Spanish martello tower. From the Chouteau house Julia could

see their cell windows covered with iron gratings and the guard pacing

to and fro.

At the trial in the old Spanish garrison house on the hill the streets

swarmed with red warriors.

"How far away St. Louis is from civilisation," remarked Julia. "We

seem in the very heart of the Indian country."

"The Governor has organised the militia, and our good friend Auguste

Chouteau is their colonel," answered her husband, reassuringly.

"Why these fortifications, these bastions and stone towers?" inquired

Julia, as they walked along the Rue.

"They were built a long time ago for defences against the Indians. In

fact my brother defended St. Louis once against an Indian raid."

"Tell me the story," cried Julia. And walking along the narrow streets

under the honey-scented locusts, Clark told Julia of the fight and

fright of 1780.

"And was that when the Spanish lady was here?"

"Yes."

"And what became of her finally?"

"She fled with the nuns to Cuba at the cession of New Orleans."

Trilliums red and white, anemones holding up their shell-pink cups,

and in damp spots adder's tongues and delicate Dutchman's breeches,

were thick around them as they walked down by the old Chouteau Pond.

Primeval forests surrounded it, white-armed sycamores and thickets of

crab-apple.

"This is the mill that makes bread for St. Louis. Everybody comes down

to Chouteau's mill for flour. It is so small I am not surprised that

they call St. Louis 'Pain Court'--'short of bread.' To-morrow the

washerwomen will be at the pond, boiling clothes in iron pots and

drying them on the hazel bushes."

As they came back in the flush of evening all St. Louis had moved out

of doors. The wide galleries were filled with settees and tables and

chairs, and the neighbourly Creoles were visiting one another, and

greeting the passers-by.

Sometimes the walk led over the hill to the Grand Prairie west of

town. The greensward waved in the breezes like a wheatfield in May.

Cabanné's wind-mill could be seen in the distance across the prairie

near the timber with its great wings fifty and sixty feet long flying

in the air like things of life.

Cabanné the Swiss had married Gratiot's daughter.

St. Louis weddings generally took place at Easter, so other brides and

grooms were walking there in those May days a hundred years ago. Night

and morning, as in Acadia, the rural population still went to and from

the fields with their cattle and carts and old-style wheel ploughs.

In November Clark and his bride moved into the René Kiersereau cottage

on the Rue Royale. The old French House of René Kiersereau dated back

to the beginning of St. Louis. Built of heavy timbers and plastered

with rubble and mortar, it bade fair still to withstand the wear and

tear of generations. With a long low porch in front and rear, and a

fence of cedar pickets like a miniature stockade, it differed in no

respect from the other modest cottages of St. Louis. Back of the house

rushed the river; before it, locusts and lightning bugs flitted in the

summer garden. Beside the Kiersereau house Clark had his Indian office

in the small stone store of Alexis Marie.

Into this little house almost daily came Meriwether Lewis, and every

moment that could be spared from pressing duties was engrossed in work

on the journals of the expedition. Sometimes Julia brought her harp

and sang. But into this home quiet were coming constant echoes of the

Indian world.

"Settlers are encroaching on the Osage lands. We shall have trouble,"

said Governor Lewis. Under an escort of a troop of cavalry Clark rode

out into the Indian country to make a treaty with the Osages. The

Shawnees and Delawares had been invited to settle near St. Louis to

act as a shield against the barbarous Osages. The Shawnees and

Delawares were opening little farms and gardens near Cape Girardeau,

building houses and trying to become civilised. But settlers had gone

on around them into the Osage wilderness.

"I will establish a fort to regulate these difficulties," said the

General, and on his return Fort Osage was built.

"Settlers are encroaching on our lands," came the cry from Sacs,

Foxes, and Iowas. Governor Lewis himself held a council with the

discontented tribes and established Fort Madison, the first United

States post up the Mississippi.

But there were still Big White and his people not yet returned to the

Mandan country, and this was the most perplexing problem of all.

VI

_THE FIRST FORT IN MONTANA_

Manuel Lisa had enemies and ambition. These always go together.

Scarcely had Clark and his bride settled at St. Louis before down from

the north came Manuel Lisa's boats, piled, heaped, and laden to the

gunwale edge with furs out of the Yellowstone. His triumphant guns

saluted Charette, St. Charles, St. Louis. He had run the gauntlet of

Sioux, Arikara, and Assiniboine. He had penetrated the Yellowstone and

established Fort Lisa at the mouth of the Bighorn in the very heart of

the Crow-land,--the first building in what is now Montana.

"Dey say you cause de attack on Big White," buzzed a Frenchman in his

ear. Angry at such an imputation, the Spaniard hastened to Governor

Lewis.

"I disclaim all responsibility for that disaster. The Arikaras fired

across my bow. I stopped. But I had my men-at-arms, my swivels ready.

I understood presents. I smoked the pipe of peace, with a musket in my

hand. Of course I passed. Even the Mandans fired on me, and the

Assiniboines. Should that dismay a trader?"

Manuel Lisa, the successful, was now monarch of the fur trade. Even

his enemies capitulated.

"If he is stern in discipline, the service demands it. He has gone

farther, dared more, accomplished more, and brought home more, than

any other. What a future for St. Louis! We must unite our forces."

And so the city on the border reached out toward her destiny. Pierre

and Auguste Chouteau, William Clark and Reuben Lewis, locked fortunes

with the daring, indomitable Manuel Lisa. Pierre Menard, Andrew Henry,

and others, a dozen altogether, put in forty thousand dollars,

incorporating the Missouri Fur Company. Into the very heart of the

Rocky Mountains it was resolved to push, into those primeval beaver

meadows whither Lewis and Clark had led the way.

"Abandon the timid methods of former trade,--plunge at once deep into

the wilderness," said Lisa; "ascend the Missouri to its utmost

navigable waters, and by establishing posts monopolise the trade of

the entire region."

Already had Lisa dreamed of the Santa Fé,--now he looked toward the

Pacific.

And now, too, was the time to send Big White back to the Mandans.

Under the convoy of two hundred and fifty people,--enlisted soldiers

and _engagés_, American hunters, Creoles, and Canadian voyageurs,--the

fur flotilla set sail with tons of traps and merchandise.

As the flotilla pulled out, a tall gaunt frontiersman with two white

men and an Indian came pulling into St. Louis. Clark turned a second

time,--"Why, Daniel Boone!"

"First rate! first rate!" Furrowed as a sage and tanned as a hunter,

with a firm hand-grasp, the old man stepped ashore. Two summers now

had Daniel Boone and his two sons brought down to St. Louis a cargo of

salt, manufactured by themselves at Boone's Lick, a discovery of the

old pioneer.

"Any settlers comin'? We air prepared to tote 'em up."

Ever a welcome guest to the home of General Clark, Daniel Boone strode

along to the cottage on the Rue. At sight of Julia he closed his eyes,

dazzled.

"'Pears to me she looks like Rebecca."

Never, since that day when young Boone went hunting deer in the Yadkin

forest and found Rebecca Bryan, a ruddy, flax-haired girl, had he

ceased to be her lover. And though years had passed and Rebecca had

faded, to him she was ever the gold-haired girl of the Yadkin. Poor

Rebecca! Hers had been a hard life in camp and cabin, with pigs and

chickens in the front yard and rain dripping through the roof.

"Daniel!" she sometimes said, severely.

"Wa-al, now Rebecca, thee knows I didn't have time to mend that air

leak in the ruff last summer; I war gone too long at the beaver. But

thee shall have a new house." And again the faithful Rebecca stuffed a

rag in the ceiling with her mop-handle and meekly went on baking

hoe-cake before the blazing forelog.

Daniel had long promised a new house, but now, at last, he was really

going to build. For this he was studying St. Louis.

A day looking at houses and disposing of his salt and beaver-skins,

and back he went, with a boatload of emigrants and a cargo of

school-books. Mere trappers came and went,--Boone brought settlers.

Pathfinder, judge, statesman, physician to the border, he now carried

equipments for the first school up the Missouri.

VII

_A MYSTERY_

Furs were piled everywhere, the furs that had been wont to go to

Europe,--otter, beaver, deer, and bear and buffalo. American ships,

that had sped like eagles on every sea, were threatened now by England

if they sailed to France, by France if they sailed to England.

"If our ships, our sailors, our goods are to be seized, it is better

to keep them at home," said Jefferson.

"War itself would be better than that," pled Gallatin.

The whole world was taking sides in the cataclysm over the sea.

Napoleon recognised no neutrals. England recognised none. Denmark

tried it, and the British fleet burned Copenhagen. Ominously the

conflagration glimmered,--such might be the fate of any American

seaport.

"If we must fight let us go with France," said some. "Napoleon will

guarantee us the cession of Canada and Nova Scotia."

But Jefferson, carrying all before him, on Tuesday, December 22,

1807, signed an embargo act, shutting up our ships in our own

harbours. In six months commercial life-blood ceased to flow. Ships

rotted at the wharfs. Grass grew in the streets of Baltimore and

Boston.

St. Louis traders tried to go over to Canada, but were stopped at

Detroit--"by that evil embargo."

St. Louis withered. "De Meeseppi ees closed. Tees worse dan de

Spaniard!"

This unpopularity of Jefferson cast Governor Lewis into deepest gloom.

The benevolent President's system of peaceable coercion was bringing

the country to the verge of rebellion. England cared not nor France,

and America was stifling with wheat, corn, and cattle, without a

market.

Fur, fur,--the currency and standard of value in St. Louis was

valueless. Taxes even could no longer be paid in shaved deerskins.

Peltry bonds, once worth their weight in gold, had dropped to nothing.

Moths and mildew crept into the Chouteau warehouses. A few weeks more

and the fruits of Lisa's adventure would perish.

Into the Clark home there had come an infant boy, "named Meriwether

Lewis," said the General, when the Governor came to look at the child.

Every day now he came to the cradle, for, weary with cares, the quiet

domestic atmosphere rested him. He moved his books and clothes, and

the modest little home on the Rue became the home of the Governor.

Beside the fire Julia stitched, stitched at dainty garments while the

General and the Governor worked on their journals. Now and then their

eyes strayed toward the sleeping infant.

"This child is fairer than Sacajawea's at Clatsop," remarked Lewis.

"But it cries the same, and is liable to the same ills."

"And did you name a river for Sacajawea, too?" laughed Julia.

"Certainly, certainly, but the Governor's favourite river was named

Maria," slyly interposed Clark.

A quick flush passed over the Governor's cheek. He had lately

purchased a three-and-a-half arpent piece of land north of St. Louis

for a home for his mother,--or was it for Maria? However, in June

Clark took Julia and the baby with him on a trip to Louisville, and

the same month Maria was married to somebody else.

But on the Ohio the joyous activity had ceased. No longer the

boatman's horn rang over cliff and scar. Jefferson's embargo had

stagnated the waters.

When General Clark returned to St. Louis in July he found his friend

still more embarrassed and depressed.

"My bills are protested," said the Governor. "Here is one for eighteen

dollars rejected by the Secretary of the Treasury. This has given me

infinite concern, as the fate of others drawn for similar purposes

cannot be in doubt. Their rejection cannot fail to impress the public

mind unfavourably with respect to me."

"And what are these bills for?" inquired Clark.

"Expenses incurred in governing the territory," answered Lewis.

General Clark did not have to look back many years to recall the wreck

of his brother on this same snag of protested bills, and exactly as

with George Rogers Clark the proud and sensitive heart of Meriwether

Lewis was cut to the core.

"More painful than the rejection, is the displeasure which must arise

in the mind of the executive from my having drawn for public moneys

without authority. A third and not less embarrassing circumstance is

that my private funds are entirely incompetent to meet these bills if

protested."

With the generosity of his nature Clark gave Lewis one hundred

dollars, and Lewis arranged as soon as possible to go to Washington

with his vouchers to see the President.

With the courage of upright convictions, Governor Lewis contended with

the difficulties of his office, and in due course received the rest of

his protested bills. If he raged at heart he said little. If he spent

sleepless nights tossing, and communing with himself, he spoke no word

to those around him. Though the dagger pierced he made no sign.

Borrowing money of his friends as George Rogers Clark had done, he

met his bills as best he might. But his haggard face and evident

illness alarmed his friends.

"You had better take a trip to the east," they urged. "You have

malarial fever."

He decided to act on this suggestion, and with the journals of the

western expedition and his vouchers the Governor bade his friends

farewell and dropped down the river, intending to take a coasting

vessel to New Orleans and pass around to Washington by sea.

But at the Chickasaw Bluffs, now Memphis, Lewis was ill. Moreover,

rumours of war were in the air.

"These precious manuscripts that I have carried now for so many miles,

must not be lost," thought Lewis, "nor the vouchers of my public

accounts on which my honour rests. I will go by land through the

Chickasaw country."

The United States agent with the Chickasaw Indians, Major Neely,

arriving there two days later, found Lewis still detained by illness.

"I must accompany and watch over him," he said, when he found that the

Governor was resolved to press on at all hazards. "He is very ill."

One hundred years ago the Natchez trace was a new military road that

had been cut through the wilderness of Tennessee to the Spanish

country. Over this road the pony express galloped day and night and

pioneer caravans paused at nightfall at lonely wayside inns. Brigands

infested the forest, hard on the trail of the trader returning from

New Orleans with a pouch of Spanish silver in his saddlebags.

Over that road Aaron Burr had travelled on his visit to Andrew Jackson

at Nashville, and on it Tecumseh was even now journeying to the tribes

of the south.

"Two of the horses have strayed," was the servant's report at the end

of one day's journey. But even that could not delay the Governor.

"I will wait for you at the house of the first white inhabitant on the

road," said Lewis, as Neely turned back for the lost roadsters.

It was evening when the Governor arrived at Grinder's stand, the last

cabin on the borders of the Chickasaw country.

"May I stay for the night?" he inquired of the woman at the door.

"Come you alone?" she asked.

"My servants are behind. Bring me some wine."

Alighting and bringing in his saddle, the Governor touched the wine

and turned away. Pulling off his loose white blue-striped travelling

gown, he waited for his servants.

The woman scanned her guest,--of elegant manners and courtly bearing,

he was evidently a gentleman. But a troubled look on his face, an

impatient walk to and fro, denoted something wrong. She listened,--he

was talking to himself. His sudden wheels and turns and strides

startled her.

"Where is my powder? I am sure there was some powder in my canister,"

he said to the servants at the door.

After a mouthful of supper, he suddenly started up, speaking in a

violent manner, flushed and excited. Then, lighting his pipe, he sat

down by the cabin door.

"Madame, this is a very pleasant evening."

Mrs. Grinder noted the kindly tone, the handsome, haggard face, the

air of abstraction. Quietly he smoked for a time, then again he

flushed, arose excitedly, and stepped into the yard. There he began

pacing angrily to and fro.

But again he sat down to his pipe, and again seemed composed. He cast

his eyes toward the west, that West, the scene of his toils and

triumphs.

"What a sweet evening it is!" He had seen that same sun silvering the

northern rivers, gilding the peaks of the Rockies, and sinking into

the Pacific. It all came over him now, like a soothing dream, calming

the fevered soul and stilling its tumult.

The woman was preparing the usual feather-bed for her guest.

"I beg you, Madame, do not trouble yourself. Pernia, bring my

bearskins and buffalo robe."

The skins and robe were spread on the floor and the woman went away to

her kitchen. The house was a double log cabin with a covered way

between. Such houses abound still in the Cumberland Mountains.

"I am afraid of that man," said the woman in the kitchen, putting her

children in their beds. "Something is wrong. I cannot sleep."

The servants slept in the barn. Neely had not come. Night came down

with its mysterious veil upon the frontier cabin.

But still that heavy pace was heard in the other cabin. Now and then a

voice spoke rapidly and incoherently.

"He must be a lawyer," said the woman in the kitchen. Suddenly she

heard the report of a pistol, and something dropped heavily to the

floor. There was a voice,--"O Lord!"

Excited, peering into the night, the trembling woman listened. Another

pistol, and then a voice at her door,--"Oh, madame, give me some water

and heal my wounds!"

Peering into the moonlight between the open unplastered logs, she saw

her guest stagger and fall. Presently he crawled back into the room.

Then again he came to the kitchen door, but did not speak. An empty

pail stood there with a gourd,--he was searching for water. Cowering,

terrified, there in the kitchen with her children the woman waited for

the light.

At the first break of day she sent two of the children to the barn to

arouse the servants. And there, on his bearskins on the cabin floor,

they found the shattered frame of Meriwether Lewis, a bullet in his

side, a shot under his chin, and a ghastly wound in his forehead.

"Take my rifle and kill me!" he begged. "I will give you all the money

in my trunk. I am no coward, but I am so strong,--so hard to die! Do

not be afraid of me, Pernia, I will not hurt you."

And as the sun rose over the Tennessee trees, Meriwether Lewis was

dead, on the 11th of October, 1809.

VIII

_A LONELY GRAVE IN TENNESSEE_

A hero of his country was dead, the Governor of its largest

Territory,--dead, on his way to Washington, where fresh honours

awaited him,--dead, far from friends and kindred in a wild and

boundless forest.

Did he commit suicide in a moment of aberration, or was he foully

murdered by an unknown hand on that 11th of October, 1809? President

Jefferson, who had observed signs of melancholy in him in early life,

favoured the idea of suicide, but in the immediate neighbourhood the

theory of murder took instant shape. Where was Joshua Grinder? Where

were those servants? Where was Neely himself?

"I never for a moment entertained the thought of suicide," said his

mother, when she heard the news. "His last letter was full of hope. I

was to live with him in St. Louis."

Of all men in the world why should Meriwether Lewis commit suicide?

The question has been argued for a hundred years and is to-day no

nearer solution than ever.

"Old Grinder killed him and got his money," said the neighbours. "He

saw he was well dressed and evidently a person of distinction and

wealth." Grinder was arrested and tried but no proof could be secured.

"Alarmed by his groans the robbers hid his pouch of gold coins in the

earth, with the intention of securing it later," said others. "They

never ventured to return,--it lies there, buried, to this day." And

the superstitions of the neighbourhood have invested the spot with the

weird fascination of Captain Kidd's treasure, or the buried box of

gold on Neacarney.

"He was killed by his French servant," said the Lewis family. Later,

when Pernia visited Charlottesville and sent word to Locust Hill,

Meriwether's mother refused to see him.

John Marks, half-brother of Meriwether Lewis, went immediately to the

scene of tragedy, but nothing more could be done or learned.

Proceeding to St. Louis, the estate was settled.

When at last the trunks arrived at Washington they were found to

contain the journals, papers on the protested bills, and the

well-known spy-glass used by Lewis on the expedition. But there were

no valuables or money.

Years after, Meriwether's sister and her husband unexpectedly met

Pernia on the streets of Mobile, and Mary recognised in his possession

the William Wirt watch and the gun of her brother. On demand they were

promptly surrendered.

In the lonely heart of Lewis county, Tennessee, stands to-day a

crumbling gray stone monument with a broken shaft of limestone erected

by the State on the spot where, in the thirty-fifth year of his age,

Meriwether Lewis met his death. In solitude and desolation, moss

overlies his tomb, but his name lives on, brightening with the years.

IX

_TRADE FOLLOWS THE FLAG_

"_Bon jour_, Ms'ieu, you want to know where dat Captinne?" The polite

Creole lifted his cap.

"'Pears now, maybe I heerd he wuz Guv'ner," said the keen-eyed trapper

thoughtfully.

"Guff'ner Lewees ees det,--kilt heeself. Generale Clark leeves on de

Rue Royale, next de Injun office."

In unkempt beard, hair shaggy as a horse's mane, and clothing all of

leather, the stranger climbed the rocky path, using the stock of his

gun for a staff.

It did not take long to find the Indian office. With a dozen lounging

braves outside and a council within, sat William Clark, the Red Head

Chief.

General Clark noted the shadow in the door that bright May morning.

Not in vain had these men faced the West together.

"Bless me, it's Coalter! Where have you been? How did you come?"

From the mountains, three thousand miles in thirty days, in a small

canoe, Coalter had come flying down the melting head-snows of the

Rockies. He was haggard with hunger and loss of sleep.

Leading his old companion to the cottage, Clark soon had him

surrounded with the comforts of a civilised meal. Refreshed, gradually

the trapper unfolded his tale.

When John Coalter left Lewis and Clark at the Mandan towns and went

back with Hancock and Dickson, in that Summer of 1806, they, the first

of white men, entered the Yellowstone Park of to-day. In the Spring,

separating from his companions, Coalter set out for St. Louis in a

solitary canoe. At the mouth of the Platte he met Manuel Lisa and

Drouillard coming up. And with them, John Potts, another of the Lewis

and Clark soldiers. On the spot Coalter re-enlisted and returned a

third time to the wilderness.

Such a man was invaluable to that first venture in the north. After

Lisa had stockaded his fort at the mouth of the Bighorn, he sent

Coalter to bring the Indians. Alone he set out with gun and knapsack,

travelled five hundred miles, and brought in his friends the Crows.

That laid the foundation of Lisa's fortune.

When Lisa came down with his furs in the Spring, Coalter and Potts

with traps on their backs set out for the beaver-meadows of the Three

Forks, the Madison, the Jefferson, and the Gallatin.

"We knew those Blackfoot sarpints would spare no chance to skelp us,"

said Coalter, "so we sot our traps by night an' tuk 'em afore

daylight. Goin' up a creek six miles from the Jefferson, examinin' our

traps one mornin', on a suddent we heerd a great noise. But the banks

wuz high an' we cudn't see.

"'Blackfeet, Potts. Let's retreat,' sez I.

"'Blackfut nuthin'. Ye must be a coward. Thet's buffaloes,' sez Potts.

An' we kep' on.

"In a few minutes five or six hunderd Injuns appeared on both sides uv

the creek, beckonin' us ashore. I saw 't warnt no use an' turned the

canoe head in.

"Ez we touched, an Injun seized Potts' rifle. I jumped an' grabbed an'

handed it back to Potts in the canoe. He tuk it an' pushed off.

"An' Injun let fly an arrer. Jest ez I heard it whizz, Potts cried,

'Coalter, I'm wounded.'

"'Don't try to get off, Potts, come ashore,' I urged. But no, he

levelled his rifle and shot a Blackfoot dead on the spot. Instanter

they riddled Potts,--dead, he floated down stream.

"Then they seized and stripped me. I seed 'em consultin'.

"'Set 'im up fer a target,' said some. I knew ther lingo, lernt it

'mongst the Crows, raound Lisa's fort, at the Bighorn. But the chief

asked me, 'Can ye run fast?'

"'No, very bad runner,' I answered."

Clark smiled. Well he remembered Coalter as the winner in many a

racing bout.

"The chief led me aout on the prairie, 'Save yerself ef ye can.'

"Et thet instant I heerd, 'Whoop-ahahahahah-hooh!' like ten thousand

divils, an' I _flew_.

"It wuz six miles to the Jefferson; the graound wuz stuck like a

pinquishen with prickly-pear an' sand burrs, cuttin' my bare feet, but

I wuz half acrosst before I ventured to look over the shoulder. The

sarpints ware pantin' an' fallin' behind an' scatterin'. But one with

a spear not more'n a hunderd yeards behind was gainin'.

"I made another bound,--blood gushed from my nostrils. Nearer, nearer

I heerd his breath and steps, expectin' every minute to feel thet

spear in my back.

"Agin I looked. Not twenty yeards behind he ran. On a suddint I

stopped, turned, and spread my arms. The Blackfoot, astonished at the

blood all over my front, perhaps, tried to stop but stumbled an' fell

and broke his spear. I ran back, snatched the point, and pinned him to

the earth.

"The rest set up a hidjus yell. While they stopped beside ther fallen

comrade, almost faintin' I ran inter the cottonwoods on the borders uv

the shore an' plunged ento the river.

"Diving under a raft of drift-timber agin the upper point of a little

island, I held my head up in a little opening amongst the trunks of

trees covered with limbs and brushwood.

"Screechin', yellin' like so many divils, they come onto the island.

Thro' the chinks I seed 'em huntin', huntin', huntin', all day long. I

only feared they might set the raft on fire.

"But at night they gave it up; the voices grew faint and fer away; I

swam cautiously daown an' acrost, an' landin' travelled all night.

"But I wuz naked. The broilin' sun scorched my skin, my feet were

filled with prickly-pears, an' I wuz hungry. Game, game plenty on the

hills, but I hed no gun. It was seven days to Lisa's fort on the

Bighorn.

"I remembered the Injun turnip that Sacajawea found in there, an'

lived on it an' sheep sorrel until I reached Lisa's fort, blistered

from head to heel."

As in a vision the General saw it all. Judy's eyes were filled with

tears. Through the Gallatin, the Indian Valley of Flowers, where

Bozeman stands to-day, the lonely trapper had toiled in the July sun

and over the Bozeman Pass, whither Clark's cavalcade had ridden two

summers before.

Six years now had Coalter been gone from civilisation, but he had

discovered the Yellowstone Park. No one in St. Louis would believe his

stories of hot water spouting in fountains, "Coalter's Hell," but

William Clark traced his route on the map that he sent for

publication.

John Coalter now received his delayed reward for the

expedition,--double pay and three hundred acres of land,--and went up

to find Boone at Charette.

"What! Pierre Menard!" Another boat had come out of the north.

General Clark grasped the horny hand of the fur trader. "What luck?"

"Bad, bad," gloomily answered the trader with a shake of his flowing

mane. "Drouillard is dead, and the rest are likely soon to be."

"What do you mean?"

"Blackfeet!"

Clark guessed all, even before he heard the full details behind locked

doors of the Missouri Fur Company at the warehouse of Pierre Chouteau.

"As you knew," began Menard, "we spent last winter at Fort Lisa on the

Bighorn. When Lisa started down here in March we packed our traps on

horses, crossed to the Three Forks, and built a double stockade of

logs at the confluence of the rivers. Every night the men came in with

beaver, beaver, beaver. We confidently expected to bring down not less

than three hundred packs this fall but that hope is shattered. On the

12th of April our men were ambuscaded by Blackfeet. Five were killed.

All their furs, traps, horses, guns, and equipments are without doubt

by this time at Fort Edmonton on the Saskatchewan."

"But you expected to visit the Snakes and Flatheads," suggested one to

rouse the despondent trader from his revery.

"I did. And the object was to obtain a Blackfoot prisoner if possible

in order to open communication with his tribe. They are the most

unapproachable Indians we have known. They refuse all overtures.

"Just outside the fort Drouillard was killed. A high wind was blowing

at the time, so he was not heard, but the scene of the conflict

indicated a desperate defence.

"Despair seized our hunters. They refused to go out. Indeed, it was

impossible to go except in numbers, so Henry and I concluded it was

best to report. I set out by night, and here I am, with these men and

thirty packs of beaver. God pity poor Henry at the Three Forks!"

Thus at one blow were shattered the high hopes of the Missouri Fur

Company. All thought of Andrew Henry, tall, slender, blue-eyed,

dark-haired, a man that spoke seldom, but of great deeds. Would he

survive a winter among the Blackfeet?

But there was another cause of disquiet to the Missouri Fur Company.

"Have you heard of John Jacob Astor?"

"What?"

"He has gone with Wilson Price Hunt to Montreal to engage men for an

expedition to the Columbia."

"What, Hunt who kept an Indian shop here on the Rue?" They all knew

him. He had come to St. Louis in 1804 and become an adept in

outfitting.

Two or three times Astor had offered to buy stock in the Missouri Fur

Company but had been refused. Jefferson himself had recommended him to

Lewis. Now he was carrying trade into the fur country over their

heads. Already he had a great trade on the lakes, and to the

headwaters of the Mississippi. He had profited by the surrender of

Detroit and Mackinaw. Another stride took him to the Falls of St.

Anthony; and now, along the trail of Lewis and Clark he planned to be

first on the Pacific. With ships by sea and caravans by land, he could

at last accomplish the wished-for trade to China.

"But I, too, planned the Pacific trade," said Manuel Lisa, coming down

in the Autumn. There was some jealousy that a New York man should be

first to follow the trail to the sea.

The winter was one of anxiety, for Astor's men had arrived in St.

Louis and had gone up the Missouri to camp until Spring. Anxiety, too,

for Andrew Henry, out there alone in the Blackfoot country.

Could they have been gifted with sufficient sight, the partners in St.

Louis might even then have seen the brave Andrew Henry fighting for

his life on that little tongue of land between the Madison and the

Jefferson. No trapping could be done. It was dangerous to go any

distance from the fort except in large parties. Fearing the entire

destruction of his little band, Henry moved across the mountains into

the Oregon country, and wintered on what is now Henry's Fork of the

river Snake, the first American stronghold on the Columbia.

"We must exterminate Hunt's party," said Manuel Lisa.

"No," said Pierre Chouteau. "Next year he will send again and again,

and in time will exterminate us. Your duty will be to protect his men

on the water, and may God Almighty have mercy on them in the

mountains, for they will never reach their destination."

From his new home at Charette John Coalter saw Astor's people going

by, bound for the Columbia. To his surprise they inquired for him.

"General Clark told us you were the best informed man in the country."

Coalter told them of the hostility of the Blackfeet and the story of

his escape. He longed to return with them to the mountains, but he had

just married a squaw and he decided to stay. Moreover, a twinge in his

limbs warned him that that plunge in the Jefferson had given him

rheumatism for life.

Daniel Boone, standing on the bank at Charette when Hunt went by, came

down and examined their outfit. "Jist returned from my traps on the

Creek," he said, pointing to sixty beaver skins.

Tame beavers and otters, caught on an island opposite Charette Creek,

were playing around his cabin. And his neighbours had elk and deer and

buffalo, broken to the yoke.

Several seasons had Boone with his old friend Calloway trapped on the

Kansas; now he longed for the mountains.

"Another year and I, too, will go to the Yellowstone," said Daniel

Boone.

"Andrew Henry must be rescued. His situation is desperate. He may be

dead," said General Clark, President of the Missouri Fur Company at

St. Louis.

Three weeks behind Hunt, Lisa set out in a swift barge propelled by

twenty oars, with a swivel on the bow and two blunderbusses in the

cabin. Lisa had been a sea-captain,--he rigged his boat with a good

mast, mainsail and topsail, and led his men with a ringing boat-song.

Then followed a keelboat race of a thousand miles up the Missouri.

June 2 Lisa caught up with Hunt near the present Bismarck, and met

Andrew Henry coming down with forty packs of beaver.

To avoid the hostile Blackfeet, Hunt bought horses and crossed through

the Yellowstone-Crow country to the abandoned fort of Henry on the

Snake, and on to the Columbia.

Aboard that barge with Lisa went Sacajawea. True to her word, she had

brought the little Touissant down to St. Louis, where Clark placed him

with the Catholic sisters to be trained for an interpreter. Sacajawea

was dressed as a white woman; she had quickly adopted their manners

and language; but, in the words of a chronicler who saw her there,

"she had become sickly, and longed to revisit her native country. Her

husband also had become wearied of civilised life."

So back they went to the Minnetarees, bearing pipes from Clark to the

chiefs. Five hundred dollars a year Charboneau now received as Indian

agent for the United States. For more than thirty years he held his

post, and to this day his name may be traced in the land of Dakota.

We can see Sacajawea now, startled and expectant, her heart beating

like a trip-hammer under her bodice, looking at Julia! No dreams of

her mountains had ever shown such sunny hair, such fluffs of curls,

like moonrise on the water. And that diaphanous cloud,--was it a

dress? No Shoshone girl ever saw such buckskin, finer than blossom of

the bitter-root.

"I am come," said Sacajawea.

A whole year she had tarried among the whites, quickly accommodating

herself to their ways. But in the level St. Louis she dreamed of her

northland, and now she was going home!

X

_TECUMSEH_

"It is madness to contend against the whites," said Black Hoof, chief

of the Shawnees. "The more we fight the more they come."

He had led raids against Boonsboro, watched the Ohio, and sold scalps

at Detroit. Three times his town was burnt behind him, twice by Clark

and once by Wayne. Then he gave up, signed the treaty at Greenville,

and for ever after kept the peace. Now he was living with a band of

Shawnees at Cape Girardeau, and made frequent visits to his old

friend, Daniel Boone.

Indian Phillips was with those who besieged Boonsboro. Phillips was a

white man stolen as a child who had always lived with the Shawnees. To

him Daniel Boone was the closest of friends. They hunted together and

slept together. Boone took Phillips' bearskins and sold them with his

own in St. Louis.

"If I should die while I am out with you, Phillips, you must mark my

grave and tell the folks so they can carry me home."

Long after those Indians in the West had welcomed Boone's sons, an old

squaw said, "I was an adopted sister during his captivity with the

Ohio Indians."

Sometimes Boone went over to Cape Girardeau, and sat with his friends

talking over old times.

"Do you remember, Dan," Phillips would say, "when we had you prisoner

at Detroit? You remember the British traders gave you a horse and

saddle and Black Fish adopted you, and you and he made an agreement

you would lead him to Boonsboro and make them surrender and bury the

tomahawk, and live like brothers and sisters?"

"Yes, I remember," said Boone, smiling at the recollection of those

arts of subterfuge.

"Do you remember one warm day when Black Fish said, 'Dan, the corn is

in good roasting ears. I would like to have your horse and mine in

good condition before we start to Boonsboro. We need a trough to feed

them in. I will show you a big log that you can dig out.' Black Fish

led you to a big walnut log. You worked a while and then lay down.

Black Fish came and said, 'Well, Dan, you haven't done much.'

"'No,' you answered, 'you and your squaw call me your son, but you

don't love me much. When I am at home I don't work this way,--I have

negroes to work for me.'

"'Well,' said Black Fish, 'come to camp and stay with your brothers.'"

Quietly the two old men chuckled together. Boone always called Black

Fish, father, and when he went hunting brought the choicest bit to the

chief.

But now Boone's visits to Girardeau were made with a purpose.

"What is Tecumseh doing?"

"Tecumseh? He says no tribe can sell our lands. He refuses to move out

of Ohio."

Old Black Hoof had pulled away from Tecumseh. The Shooting Star

refused to attend Wayne's treaty at Greenville. In 1805 he styled

himself a chief, and organised the young blood of the Shawnees into a

personal band.

About this time Tecumseh met Rebecca Galloway, whose father, James

Galloway, had moved over from Kentucky to settle near Old Chillicothe.

At the Galloway hearth Tecumseh was ever a welcome guest.

"Teach me to read the white man's book," said Tecumseh to the fair

Rebecca.

With wonderful speed the young chief picked up the English alphabet.

Hungry for knowledge, he read and read and Rebecca read to him.

Thereafter in his wonderful war and peace orations, Tecumseh used the

language of his beloved Rebecca. For, human-like, the young chief lost

his heart to the white girl. Days went by, dangerous days, while

Rebecca was correcting Tecumseh's speech, enlarging his English

vocabulary, and reading to him from the Bible.

"Promise me, Tecumseh, never, never will you permit the massacre of

helpless women and children after capture." Tecumseh promised.

"And be kind to the poor surrendered prisoner."

"I will be kind," said Tecumseh.

But time was fleeting,--game was disappearing,--Tecumseh was an

Indian. His lands were slipping from under his feet.

It was useless to speak to the fair Rebecca. Terrified at the fire she

had kindled, she saw him no more. Enraged, wrathful, he returned to

his band. Tecumseh never loved any Indian woman. A wife or two he

tried, then bade them "Begone!"

When Lewis and Clark returned from the West, Tecumseh and his brother,

the Prophet, were already planning a vast confederation to wipe out

the whites.

Jefferson heard of these things.

"He is visionary," said the President, and let him go on unmolested.

"The Seventeen Fires are cheating us!" exclaimed Tecumseh. "The

Delawares, Miamis, and Pottawattamies have sold their lands! The Great

Spirit gave the land to all the Indians. No tribe can sell without the

consent of all. The whites have driven us from the sea-coast,--they

will shortly push us into the Lakes."

The Governor-General of Canada encouraged him. Then came rumours of

Indian activity. Like the Hermit of old, Tecumseh went out to rouse

the redmen in a crusade against the whites. Still Jefferson paid no

heed.

About the time that Clark and his bride came down the Ohio, the

distracted Indians were swarming on Tippecanoe Creek, a hundred miles

from Fort Dearborn, the future Chicago. All Summer, whisperings came

into St. Louis, "Tecumseh is persuading the Sacs, Foxes, and Osages to

war."

"I will meet the Sacs and Foxes," said Lewis.

Clark went out and quieted the Osages. Boone's son and Auguste

Chouteau went with him.

"The Great Spirit bids you destroy Vincennes and sweep the Ohio to the

mouth," was the Prophet's reported advice to the Chippewas.

"Give up our land and buy no more, and I will ally with the United

States," said Tecumseh to General Harrison at Vincennes, in August of

1809.

"It cannot be," said Harrison.

"Then I will make war and ally with England," retorted the defiant

chieftain.

The frontier had much to fear from an Indian war. More and more

vagrant red men hovered around St. Louis,--Sacs, Foxes, Osages, who

had seen Tecumseh. The Illinois country opposite swarmed with them,

making raids on the farmers, killing stock, stealing horses. Massacres

and depredations began.

"'Tis time to fortify," said Daniel Boone to his sons and neighbours.

In a little while nine forts had been erected in St. Charles county

alone, and every cabin was stockaded. The five stockades at Boone's

Lick met frequent assaults. Black Hawk was there, the trusted

lieutenant of Tecumseh. The whole frontier became alarmed.

Then Manuel Lisa came down the river.

"The British are sending wampum to the Sioux. All the Missouri nations

are urged to join the confederacy."

In fact, the Prophet with his mystery fire was visiting all the

northwest tribes, even the Blackfeet. Ten thousand Indians promised to

follow him back. Dressed in white buckskin, with eagle feathers in his

hair, Tecumseh, on a spirited black pony, came to Gomo and Black

Partridge on Peoria Lake in the summer of 1810.

"I cannot join you," said Black Partridge, the Pottawattamie, holding

up a silver medal. "This token was given to me at Greenville by the

great chief [Wayne]. On it you see the face of our father at

Washington. As long as this hangs on my neck I can never raise my

tomahawk against the whites."

Gomo refused. "Long ago the Big Knife [George Rogers Clark] came to

Kaskaskia and sent for the chiefs of this river. We went. He desired

us to remain still in our own villages, saying that the Americans

were able, of themselves, to fight the British."

"Will anything short of the complete conquest of the Canadas enable us

to prevent their influence on our Indians?" asked Governor Edwards of

Illinois. Edwards and Clark planned together for the protection of the

frontier.

In July, 1811, Tecumseh went to Vincennes and held a last stormy

interview with Harrison without avail. Immediately he turned south to

the Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Seminoles. They watched him with

kindling eyes.

"Brothers, you do not mean to fight!" thundered Tecumseh to the

hesitating Creeks. "You do not believe the Great Spirit has sent me.

You shall know. From here I go straight to Detroit. When I arrive

there I shall stamp on the ground, and shake down every house in this

village."

As Tecumseh strode into the forest the terrified Creeks watched. They

counted the days. Then came the awful quaking and shaking of the New

Madrid earthquake.

"Tecumseh has reached Detroit! Tecumseh has reached Detroit!" cried

the frantic Creeks, as their wigwams tumbled about them.

Tecumseh was coming leisurely up among the tribes of Missouri,

haranguing Black Hoof at Cape Girardeau, Osages, and Kickapoos, and

Iowas at Des Moines.

But Tippecanoe had been fought and lost.

"There is to be an attack," said George Rogers Clark Floyd, tapping at

the door of Harrison's tent at three o'clock in the morning of

November 7, 1811. Harrison sprang to his horse and with him George

Croghan and John O'Fallon.

It was a battle for possession. Every Indian trained by Tecumseh knew

his country depended upon it. Every white knew he must win or the log

cabin must go. In the darkness and rain the combatants locked in the

death struggle of savagery against civilisation. Tecumseh reached the

Wabash to find the wreck of Tippecanoe.

"Wretch!" he cried to his brother, "you have ruined all!" Seizing the

Prophet by the hair, Tecumseh shook him and beat him and cuffed him

and almost killed him, then dashed away to Canada and offered his

tomahawk to Great Britain.

"The danger is not over," said Clark after Harrison's battle.

To save as many Indians as possible from the machinations of Tecumseh,

immediately after Tippecanoe Clark summoned the neighbouring tribes to

a council at St. Louis. Over the winter snows the runners sped,

calling them in for a trip to Washington.

It was May of 1812 when Clark got together his chiefs of the Great and

Little Osages, Sacs, Foxes, Shawnees, and Delawares.

"Ahaha! Great Medicine!" whispered the Indians, when General Clark

discovered their wily plans.

Nothing could be hid from the Red Head Chief. Feared and beloved, none

other could better have handled the inflammable tribes at that moment.

Old chiefs among them remembered his brother of the Long Knives, and

looked upon this Clark as his natural successor. And the General took

care not to dispel this fancy, but on every occasion strengthened and

deepened it.

Never before in St. Louis had Indians been watched so strenuously.

Moody, taciturn, repelling familiarity, they bore the faces of men who

knew secrets. Tecumseh had whispered in their ear. "Shall we listen to

Tecumseh?" They were wavering.

Cold, impassively stoic, they heeded no question when citizens

impelled by curiosity or friendly feeling endeavoured to draw them

into conversation. If pressed too closely, the straight forms lifted

still more loftily, and wrapping their blankets closer about them the

council chiefs strode contemptuously away.

But if Clark spoke, every eye was attention.

"Before we go," said Clark, "I advise you to make peace with one

another and bury the hatchet."

They did, and for the most part kept it for ever.

It was May 5 when Clark started with his embassy of ninety chiefs to

see their "Great God, the President," as they called Madison,

following the old trail to Vincennes, Louisville, and Pittsburg. Along

with them went a body-guard of soldiers, and also Mrs. Clark, her

maids, and the two little boys, on the way to Fincastle. Mrs. Clark's

especial escort was John O'Fallon, nineteen years of age, aide to

Harrison at Tippecanoe, who had come to his uncle at St. Louis

immediately after the battle.

In their best necklaces of bears' claws the chiefs arrived at

Washington. War had been declared against Great Britain. There was a

consultation with the President.

"We, too, have declared war," announced the redmen, as they strode

with Clark from the White House. But Black Hawk of the Rock River Sacs

was not there. He had followed Tecumseh.

About the same time, on the eastern bank of the Detroit river Tecumseh

was met by anxious Ohio chiefs who remembered Wayne.

"Let us remain neutral," they pleaded. "This is the white man's war."

Tecumseh shook his tomahawk above the Detroit. "My bones shall bleach

on this shore before I will join in any council of neutrality."

"The Great Father over the Big Water will never bury his war-club

until he quiets these troublers of the earth," said General Brock to

Tecumseh's redmen. Then came larger gifts than ever from "their

British Father."

"War is declared! Go," said Tecumseh, "cut off Fort Dearborn before

they hear the news!" Two emissaries from Tecumseh came flying into the

Illinois.

That night the Indians started for Chicago on her lonely lake. Black

Partridge mounted his pony and tried to dissuade them. He could not.

Then spurring he reached Fort Dearborn first. With tears he threw down

his medal before the astonished commander.

"My young men have gone on the warpath. Here is your medal. I will not

wear an emblem of friendship when I am compelled to act as an enemy."

Before the sun went down the shores of Lake Michigan were red with the

blood of men, women, and children. Like the Rhine of old France, the

lakes were still the fighting border.

President Madison felt grateful to Clark for the step he had taken

with the Indians.

"Will you command the army at Detroit?"

"I can do more for my country by attending to the Indians," was the

General's modest reply.

The country waited to hear that Hull had taken Upper Canada. Instead

the shocked nation heard, "_Hull has surrendered_!"

"Hull has surrendered!"

Runners flew among the Indians to the remotest border,--the Creeks

heard it before their white neighbours. Little Crow and his Sioux

snatched up the war hatchet. Detroit had fallen with Tecumseh and

Brock at the head of the Anglo-Indian army.

"We shall drive these Americans back across the Ohio," said General

Brock.

At this, the old and popular wish of the Lake Indians, large numbers

threw aside their scruples and joined in the war that followed.

In December General Clark was appointed Governor of the newly

organised territory of Missouri.

Meanwhile in the buff and blue stage coach, a huge box mounted on

springs, Julia and her children were swinging toward Fotheringay. The

air was hot and dusty, the leather curtains were rolled up to catch

the slightest breeze, and the happy though weary occupants looked out

on the Valley of Virginia.

Forty miles a day the coach horses travelled, leaving them each

evening a little nearer their destination. The small wayside inns

lacked comforts, but such as they were our travellers accepted

thankfully. Now and then the post-rider blew his horn and dashed by

them, or in the heat of the day rode leisurely in the shade of poplars

along the road, furtively reading the letters of his pack as he paced

in the dust.

And still over the mountains were pouring white-topped Conestoga

waggons, careening down like boats at sea, laden with cargoes of

colonial ware, pewter, and mahogany. The golden age of coaching times

had come, and magnificent horses, dappled grays and bays in

scarlet-fringed housings and jingling bells, seemed bearing away the

world on wheels.

To the new home Julia was coming, at Fotheringay.

Before the coach stopped Julia perceived through enshrining trees

Black Granny standing in the wide hallway. Throwing up her apron over

her woolly head to hide the tears of joy,--

"Laws a-honey! Miss Judy done come hum!"

"Fotheringay!" sang out the dusty driver with an unusual flourish of

whip-lash and echo-waking blast of the postillion's horn. In a trice

the steps were down, and surrounded by babies and bandboxes, brass

nail-studded hair trunks and portmanteaus of pigskin, "Miss Judy" was

greeted by the entire sable population of Fotheringay. Light-footed as

a girl she ran forward to greet her father, Colonel Hancock. The

Colonel hastened to his daughter,--

"Hull has surrendered," he said.

XI

_CLARK GUARDS THE FRONTIER_

The Indian hunt was over; they were done making their sugar; the women

were planting corn. The warriors hid in the thick foliage of the river

borders, preparing for war.

"Madison has declared war against England!"

The news was hailed with delight. Now would end this frightful

suspense. In Illinois alone, fifteen hundred savages under foreign

machinations held in terror forty thousand white people,--officers and

soldiers of George Rogers Clark and others who had settled on the

undefended prairies.

"Detroit has fallen!"

"Mackinac is gone!"

"The savages have massacred the garrison at Fort Dearborn!"

"They are planning to attack the settlements on the Mississippi. If

the Sioux join the confederacy--" cheeks paled at the possibility.

The greatest body of Indians in America resided on the Mississippi.

Who could say at what hour the waters would resound with their whoops?

Thousands of them could reach St. Louis or Cahokia from their homes in

five or six days. Immense quantities of British gifts were coming from

the Lakes to the Indians at Peoria, Rock Island, Des Moines.

"Yes, we shall attack when the corn is ripe," said the Indians at Fort

Madison.

"Unless I hear shortly of more assistance than a few rangers I shall

bury my papers in the ground, send my family off, and fight as long as

possible," said Edwards, the Governor of Illinois.

In Missouri, surrounded by Pottawattamies, champion horsethieves of

the frontier, and warlike Foxes, Iowas, and Kickapoos, the settlers

ploughed their fields with sentinels on guard. Horns hung at their

belts to blow as a signal of danger. In the quiet hour by the

fireside, an Indian would steal into the postern gate and shoot the

father at the hearth, the mother at her evening task.

Presently the settlers withdrew into the forts, unable to raise crops.

With corn in the cabin loft, the bear hunt in the fall, the turkey

hunt at Christmas, and venison hams kept over from last year, still

there was plenty.

Daniel Boone, the patriarch of about forty families, ever on the

lookout with his long thin eagle face, ruled by advice and example.

The once light flaxen hair was gray, but even yet Boone's step was

springy as the Indian's, as gun in hand he watched around the forts.

Maine, Montana, each has known it all, the same running fights of

Kentucky and Oregon. Woe to the little children playing outside the

forted village,--woe to the lad driving home the cows,--woe to the

maid at milking time.

The alarm was swelled by Quas-qua-ma, a chief of the Sacs, a very

pacific Indian and friend of the whites, who came by night to bring

warning and consult Clark. In his search Quas-qua-ma tip-toed from

porch to porch. Frightened habitants peered through the shutters.

"What ees wanted?"

"The Red Head Chief."

But Clark had not arrived.

"We must take this matter into our own hands," said the people.

"British and Indians came once from Mackinac. They may again."

"Mackinac? They are at Fort Madison now, murdering our regulars and

rangers. How long since they burned our boats and cargoes at Fort

Bellevue? Any day they may drop down on St. Louis."

"We must fortify."

"The old bastions may be made available for service."

"The old Spanish garrison tower must be refitted for the women and

children."

Such were the universal conclusions. Men went up the river to the

islands to bring down logs. Another party set to work to dig a wide,

deep ditch for a regular stockade.

When Clark arrived to begin his duties as Territorial Governor he

found St. Louis bordering on a state of panic. There was the

cloud-shadow of the north. Below, one thousand Indians, Cherokees,

Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Catawbas on a branch of the Arkansas

within three days' journey of Saint Genevieve were crossing the river

at Chickasaw Bluffs. Tecumseh's belts of wampum were flying

everywhere.

In their best necklaces of bears' claws Clark's ninety chiefs came

home, laden with tokens of esteem. Civilised military dress had

succeeded the blanket; the wild fierce air was gone.

"We have declared war against Kinchotch [King George]," said the proud

chiefs, taking boat to keep their tribes quiet along the west.

A sense of security returned to St. Louis. Would they not act as a

barrier to tribes more remote? The plan for local fortification was

abandoned, but a cordon of family blockhouses was built from

Bellefontaine to Kaskaskia, a line seventy-five miles in length, along

which the rangers rode daily, watching the red marauders of Illinois.

The Mississippi was picketed with gunboats.

"Whoever holds Prairie du Chien holds the Upper Mississippi," said

Governor Clark. "I will go there and break up that rendezvous of

British and Indians."

Who better than Clark knew the border and the Indian? He could ply the

oar, or level the rifle, or sleep at night on gravel stones.

"It requires time and a little smoking with Indians if you wish to

have peace with them."

As soon as possible a gunboat, the _Governor Clark_, and several

smaller boats, manned with one hundred and fifty volunteers and sixty

regular troops, went up into the hostile country. Fierce Sacs glared

from Rock Island, Foxes paused in their lead digging at Dubuque's

mines,--lead for British cannon.

Although on Missouri territory, Prairie du Chien was still occupied by

Indians and traders to the exclusion of Americans. Six hundred, seven

hundred miles above St. Louis, a little red bird whispered up the

Mississippi, "Long Knives coming!" The traders retired.

"Whoever enjoys the trade of the Indians will have control of their

affections and power," said Clark. "Too long have we left this point

unfortified."

A great impression had been made on the savages by the liberality of

the British traders. Their brilliant red coats--"Eenah! eenah!

eenamah!" exclaimed the Sioux.

But now the Long Knives! Wabasha, son of Wabasha of the Revolution,

remembered the Long Knives. When Clark arrived at Prairie du Chien

Wabasha refused to fight him. Red Wing came down to the council. Upon

his bosom Rising Moose proudly exhibited a medal given him by Captain

Pike in 1805. The Indians nicknamed him "Tammaha, the Pike."

Twenty-five leagues above Tammaha's village lived Wabasha, and

twenty-five above Wabasha, the Red Wing, all great chiefs of the

Sioux, all very friendly now to the Long Knife who had come up in his

gunboat.

Since time immemorial Wabasha had been a friend of the British, twice

had he, the son of Wabasha I., been to Quebec and received flags and

medals. But now he remembered Captain Pike who visited their northern

waters while Lewis and Clark were away at the west. Grasping the hand

of Clark,--

"We have the greatest friendship for the United States," said the

chiefs,--all except Little Crow. He was leading a war party to the

Lakes.

Leaving troops to erect a fort and maintain a garrison at the old

French Prairie du Chien, Governor Clark returned to his necessary

duties at St. Louis. Behind on the river remained the gunboat to guard

the builders.

"A fort at the Prairie?" cried the British traders at Mackinac. "That

cuts off our Dakota trade." And forthwith an expedition was raised to

capture the garrison.

Barely was the rude fortification completed before a force of British

and Chippewas were marching upon it.

"I will not fight the Big Knives any more," said Red Wing.

"Why?" asked the traders.

"The lion and the eagle fight. Then the lion will go home and leave us

to the eagle." Red Wing was famed for foretelling events at Prairie du

Chien.

In June Manuel Lisa came down the Missouri.

"De Arrapahoe, Arikara, Gros Ventre, and Crow are at war wit' de

American. De British Nort'west traders embroil our people wit' de

sauvages to cut dem off!"

"We must extend the posts of St. Louis to the British border,"

cautioned Clark to Lisa. "And if necessary arm the Yanktons and Omahas

against the Sacs and Iowas. I herewith commission you, Lisa, my

especial sub-agent among the nations of the Missouri to keep them at

peace."

Very well Clark knew whom he was trusting. Now that war had crippled

the Missouri Fur Company, Lisa alone represented them in the field.

Familiar with the fashions of Indians, the size and colour of the

favourite blanket, the shape and length of tomahawks, no trader was

more a favourite than Manuel Lisa. Besides, he still maintained the

company's posts,--Council Bluffs with the Omahas, six hundred miles up

the Missouri, and another at the Sioux, six hundred miles further

still, with two hundred hunters in his employ. Here was a force not to

be despised.

Ten months in the year Lisa was buried in the wilderness, hid in the

forest and the prairie, far from his wife in St. Louis. Wily, winning,

and strategic, no trader knew Indians better.

"And," continued the Governor, "I offer you five hundred dollars for

sub-agent's salary."

"A poor five hundred tollar!" laughed Lisa. "Eet will not buy te

tobacco which I give annually to dose who call me Fader. But Lisa will

go. His interests and dose of de Government are one."

Then after a moment's frowning reflection,--"I haf suffered enough,"

almost wailed Lisa, "I haf suffered enough in person and in property

under a different government, to know how to appreciate de one under

w'ich I now live."

Even while they were consulting, "Here is your friend, de Rising

Moose!" announced old Antoine Le Claire.

"Rising Moose?" Governor Clark started to his feet as one of the

Prairie du Chien chiefs came striding through the door.

"The fort is taken, but I will not fight the Long Knife. Tammaha is an

American."

All the way down on the gunboat riddled with bullets, Tammaha had come

with the fleeing soldiers to offer his tomahawk to Governor Clark. The

guns were not yet in when the enemy swept down on the fort at Prairie

du Chien.

"Prairie du Chien lost? It shall be recovered. Wait until Spring."

And the British, too, said, "Wait until Spring and we will take St.

Louis." But they feared the gunboats.

Governor Clark accepted Tammaha's service, commissioning him a chief

of the Red Wing band of Sioux. "Wait and go up with Lisa. Tell your

people the Long Knife counsels them to remain quiet."

When Lisa set out for the north as agent of both the fur business and

that of the Government, he carried with him mementoes and friendly

reminders to all the principal chiefs of the northern tribes.

Big Elk of the Omahas, Black Cat and Big White of the Mandans, Le

Borgne of the Minnetarees, even the chiefs of the dreaded Teton Sioux

were not forgotten. The Red Head had been there, had visited their

country. He was the son of their Great Father,--they would listen to

the Red Head Chief.

At this particular juncture of our national history, Clark the Red

Head and Manuel Lisa the trader formed a fortunate combination for the

interests of the United States. Their words to the northern chiefs

were weighty. Their gifts were continued pledges of sacred friendship.

While the eyes of the nation were rivetted on the conflict in the East

and on the ocean, Clark held the trans-Mississippi with even a

stronger grip than his illustrious brother had held the

trans-Alleghany thirty years before.

Along with Lisa up the Missouri to the Dakotas went Tammaha, the

Rising Moose, and crossed to Prairie du Chien.

"Where do you come from and what business have you here?" cried the

British commander, rudely jerking Tammaha's bundle from his back and

examining it for letters.

"I come from St. Louis," answered the Moose. "I promised the Long

Knife I would come to Prairie du Chien and here I am."

"Lock him in the guard house. He ought to be shot!" roared the

officer.

"I am ready for death if you choose to kill me," answered Rising

Moose.

At last in the depth of winter they sent him away.

Determined now, the old chief set out in the snows to turn all his

energy against the British.

"The Old Priest," said some of the Indians, "Tammaha talks too much!"

All along the Missouri, from St. Louis to the Mandans, Lisa held

councils with the Indians with wonderful success. But the Mississippi

tribes, nearer to Canada, were for the most part won over to Great

Britain.

In other directions Governor Clark sent out for reports from the

tribes. The answer was appalling. As if all were at war, a cordon of

foes stretched from the St. Lawrence to the Arkansas and Alabama.

Even Black Partridge,--at the Fort Dearborn massacre he had snatched

Mrs. Helm from the tomahawk and held her in the lake to save her life.

Late that night at an Indian camp a friendly squaw-mother dressed her

wounds. Black Partridge loved that girl.

"Lieutenant Helm is a prisoner among the Indians," said agent Forsythe

at Peoria. "Here are presents, Black Partridge. Go ransom him. Here is

a written order on General Clark for one hundred dollars when you

bring him to the Red Head Chief."

Black Partridge rode to the Kankakee village and spread out his

presents. "And you shall have one huntret tollars when you bring him

to te Red Head Chief."

"Not enough! Not enough!" cried the Indians.

"Here, then, take my pony, my rifle, my ring," said the Partridge,

unhooking the hoop of gold from his nose. The bargain was made. The

man was ransomed, and mounted on ponies all started for St. Louis.

Lieutenant Helm was saved.

Late at night, tired and hungry, the rain falling in torrents, without

pony or gun, Black Partridge arrived at his village on Peoria Lake.

His village? It was gone. Black embers smouldered there.

Wrapped in his blanket, Black Partridge sat on the ground to await the

revelation of dawn. Wolves howled a mournful wail in his superstitious

ear. Day dawned. There lay the carnage of slaughter,--his daughter,

his grandchild, his neighbours, dead. The rangers had burnt his town.

Breathing vengeance, "I will go on the war path," said Black

Partridge, the Pottawattamie.

Two hundred warriors went from the wigwams of Illinois under Black

Partridge, Shequenebec sent a hundred from his stronghold at the head

of Peoria Lake, Mittitass led a hundred from his village at the

portage on the Rivière des Plaines. Painted black they came,

inveterate since Tippecanoe.

"Look out for squalls," wrote John O'Fallon from St. Louis to his

mother at Louisville. "An express arrived from Fort Madison yesterday

informing that the sentinels had been obliged to fire upon the Indians

almost every night to keep them at their distance. Indians are

discovered some nights within several feet of the pickets."

Black Hawk was there. Very angry was Black Hawk at the building of

Fort Madison at the foot of Des Moines rapids.

While Lewis and Clark were gone in 1804, William Henry Harrison,

directed by Jefferson, made a treaty with the Sacs and Foxes by which

they gave up fifty millions of acres. Gratiot, Vigo, the Chouteaus,

and officers of the state and army, Quasquama and four other chiefs,

attached their names to that treaty in the presence of Major Stoddard.

"I deny its validity!" cried Black Hawk. "I never gave up my land."

Now Black Hawk was plotting and planning and attacking Fort Madison,

until early in September a panting express arrived at St. Louis.

"Fort Madison is burned, Your Excellency."

"How did it happen?" inquired the Governor.

"Besieged until the garrison was reduced to potatoes alone, we decided

to evacuate. Digging a tunnel from the southeast blockhouse to the

river, boats were made ready. Slipping out at night, crowding through

the tunnel on hands and knees, our last man set fire to Fort Madison.

Like tinder the stockade blazed, kissing the heavens. Indians leaped

and yelled with tomahawks, expecting our exit. At their backs, under

cover of darkness, we escaped down the Mississippi."

XII

_THE STORY OF A SWORD_

"Show me what kind of country we have to march through," said the

British General to Tecumseh, after Detroit had fallen.

Taking a roll of elm-bark Tecumseh drew his scalping knife and etched

upon it the rivers, hills, and woods he knew so well. And the march

began,--to be checked at Fort Stephenson by a boy of twenty-one.

It was the dream and hope of the British Fur Companies to extend their

territory as far within the American border as possible. The whole War

of 1812 was a traders' war. Commerce, commerce, for which the world is

battling still, was the motive power on land and sea.

At the Lakes now, the British fur traders waved their flags again

above the ramparts of Detroit. "We must hold this post,--its loss too

seriously deranges our plans."

Smouldering, the old Revolutionary fires had burst anew. Did George

III. still hope to conquer America?

"Hull surrendered?" America groaned at the stain, the stigma, the

national disgrace! In a day regiments leaped to fill the breach.

"Detroit must be re-taken!"

Along the Lakes battle succeeded battle in swift succession.

At Louisville two mothers, Lucy and Fanny, were anxious for their

boys. Both George Croghan and John O'Fallon had been with Harrison at

Tippecanoe. Both had been promoted. Then came the call for swords.

"Get me a sword in Philadelphia," wrote O'Fallon to his mother.

"Send me a sword to Cincinnati," begged Croghan.

Sitting under the trees at Locust Grove the sisters were discussing

the fall of Detroit. Fanny had John O'Fallon's letter announcing the

burning of Fort Madison. Lucy was devouring the last impatient scrawl

from her fiery, ambitious son, George Croghan, now caged in an obscure

fort on Sandusky River near Lake Erie.

"The General little knows me," wrote Croghan. "To assist his cause, to

promote in any way his welfare, I would bravely sacrifice my best and

fondest hopes. I am resolved on quitting the army as soon as I am

relieved of the command of this post."

Scarcely had the two mothers finished reading when a shout rang

through the streets of Louisville.

"Hurrah for Croghan! Croghan! Croghan!"

"Why, what is the matter?"

Pale with anxiety Lucy ran to the gate. The whole street was filled

with people coming that way. In a few hurried words she heard the

story from several lips at once.

"Why, you see, Madam, General Harrison was afraid Tecumseh would make

a flank attack on Fort Stephenson, in charge of George Croghan, and so

ordered him to abandon and burn it. But no,--he sent the General word,

'We are determined to hold this place, and by heaven we will!'

"That night George hastily cut a ditch and raised a stockade. Then

along came Proctor and Tecumseh with a thousand British and Indians,

and summoned him to surrender.

"The boy had only one hundred and sixty inexperienced men and a single

six-pounder, but he sent back answer: 'The fort will be defended to

the last extremity. No force, however great, can induce us to

surrender. We are resolved to hold this post or bury ourselves in its

ruins.'"

Tears ran down Lucy's cheeks as she listened,--she caught at the gate

to keep from falling. Before her arose the picture of that son with

red hair flying, and fine thin face like a blooded warhorse,--she knew

that look.

"Again Proctor sent his flag demanding surrender to avoid a terrible

massacre.

"'When this fort is taken there will be none to massacre,' answered

the boy, 'for it will not be given up while a man is left to resist!'

"The enemy advanced, and when close at hand, Croghan unmasked his

solitary cannon and swept them down. Again Proctor advanced, and again

the rifle of every man and the masked cannon met them. Falling back,

Proctor and Tecumseh retreated, abandoning a boatload of military

stores on the bank."

"Hurrah for Croghan! Croghan! Croghan!" again rang down the streets of

Louisville. The bells rang out a peal as the Stars and Stripes ran up

the flag-staff.

"The little game cock, he shall have my sword," said George Rogers

Clark, living again his own great days.

And with that sword there was a story.

When Tippecanoe was won and the world was ringing with "Harrison!" men

recalled another hero who "with no provisions, no munitions, no

cannon, no shoes, almost without an army," had held these same redmen

at bay.

"And does he yet live?"

"He lives, an exile and a hermit on a Point of Rock on the Indiana

shore above the Falls of the Ohio."

"Has he no recognition?"

Men whispered the story of the sword.

When John Rogers went back from victorious Vincennes with Hamilton a

prisoner-of-war, the grateful Virginian Assembly voted George Rogers

Clark a sword.

"And you, Captain Rogers, may present it."

The sword was ready, time passed, difficulties multiplied. Clark

presented his bill to the Virginia Legislature. To his amazement and

mortification the House of Delegates refused to allow his claim.

Clark went home, sold his bounty lands, and ruined himself to pay for

the bread and meat of his army.

And then it was rumoured, "To-day a sword will be presented to George

Rogers Clark."

All the countryside gathered, pioneers and veterans, with the civic

and military display of that rude age to see their hero honoured. The

commissioner for Virginia appeared, and in formal and complimentary

address delivered the sword. The General received it; then drawing

the long blade from its scabbard, plunged it into the earth and broke

it off at the hilt. Turning to the commissioner, he said, "Captain

Rogers, return to your State and tell her for me first to be just

before she is generous."

For years those old veterans had related to their children and

grandchildren the story of that tragic day when Clark, the hero, broke

the sword Virginia gave him.

But a new time had come and new appreciation. While the smoke of

Tippecanoe was rolling away a member of the Virginia Legislature

related anew the story of that earlier Vincennes and of the sword that

Clark, "with haughty sense of wounded pride and feeling had broken and

cast away." With unanimous voice Virginia voted a new sword and the

half-pay of a colonel for the remainder of his life.

The commissioners found the old hero partially paralysed. Lucy had

gone to him at the Point of Rock. "Brother, you are failing, you need

care, I will look after you," and tenderly she bore him to her home at

Locust Grove, where now, all day long, in his invalid chair, George

Rogers Clark studied the long reach of the blue Ohio or followed

Napoleon and the boys of 1812.

Nothing had touched him like this deed of his nephew,--"Yes, yes, he

shall have my sword!"

The next morning after the battle General Harrison wrote to the

Secretary of War: "I am sorry I cannot submit to you Major Croghan's

official report. He was to have sent it to me this morning, but I have

just heard that he was so much exhausted by thirty-six hours of

constant exertion as to be unable to make it. It will not be among the

least of General Proctor's mortifications to find that he has been

baffled by a youth who has just passed his twenty-first year. He is,

however, a hero worthy of his gallant uncle, General George Rogers

Clark."

The cannon, "Old Betsy," stands yet in Fort Stephenson at Fremont,

Ohio, where every passing year they celebrate the victory of that

second day of August, 1813,--the first check to the British advance in

the War of 1812.

A few days later, Perry's victory on Lake Erie opened the road to

Canada and Detroit was re-taken.

"Britannia, Columbia, both had set their heels upon Detroit, and young

Columbia threw Britannia back across the Lakes," says the chronicler.

Then followed the battle of the Thames and the death of Tecumseh. A

Canadian historian says, "But for Tecumseh, it is probable we should

not now have a Canada."

What if he had won Rebecca? Would Canada now be a peaceful sister of

the States?

Tecumseh fought with the fur traders,--their interests were his,--to

keep the land a wild, a game preserve for wild beasts and wilder men.

Civilisation had no part or place in Tecumseh's plan.

With the medal of George III. upon his breast, Tecumseh fell, on

Canadian soil, battle-axe in hand, hero and patriot of his race, the

last of the great Shawnees. Tecumseh's belt and shot pouch were sent

to Jefferson and hung on the walls of Monticello. Tecumseh's son

passed with his people beyond the Mississippi.

From his invalid chair at Locust Grove George Rogers Clark was writing

to his brother:

"Your embarkation from St. Louis on your late hazardous

expedition [to Prairie du Chien] was a considerable source

of anxiety to your friends and relatives. They were pleased

to hear of your safe return....

"As to Napoleon ... the news of his having abdicated the

throne--"

"Napoleon abdicated?" Governor Clark scarce finished the letter.

Having crushed him, what armies might not England hurl hitherward! New

danger menaced America.

"Napoleon abdicated!" New Orleans wept.

Then followed the word, "England is sailing into the Gulf,--Sir Edward

Pakenham, brother-in-law of the Duke of Wellington, with a part of

Wellington's victorious army, fifty ships, a thousand guns and twenty

thousand men!"

Never had Great Britain lost sight of the Mississippi. This was a part

of the fleet that burned Washington and had driven Dolly Madison and

the President into ignominious flight.

Terrified, New Orleans, the beautiful Creole maiden, beset in her

orange bower, flung out her arms appealing to the West! And that West

answered, "Never, while the Mississippi rolls to the Gulf, will we

leave you unprotected." And out of that West came Andrew Jackson and

tall Tennesseeans, Kentuckians, Mississippians, in coonskin caps and

leathern hunting shirts, to seal for ever our right to Louisiana.

The hottest part of the battle was fought at Chalmette, above the

grave of the Fighting Parson. Immortal Eighth of January, 1815!

Discontented Creoles of 1806 proved loyal Americans, vindicating their

right to honour.

Napoleon laughed when he heard it at Elba,--"I told them I had given

England a rival that one day would humble her pride."

Even the Ursuline nuns greeted their deliverers with joy, and the dim

old cloistered halls were thrown open for a hospital.

"I expect at this moment," said Lord Castlereagh in Europe, "that most

of the large seaport towns of America are laid in ashes, that we are

in possession of New Orleans, and have command of all the rivers of

the Mississippi Valley and the Lakes."

But he counted without our ships at sea. The War of 1812 was fought

upon the ocean, "the golden age of naval fighting." Bone of her bone,

flesh of her flesh, under the "Gridiron Flag," tars of the American

Revolution, sailor boys who under impressment had fought at Trafalgar,

led in a splendid spectacular drama, the like of which England or the

world had never seen. She had trained up her own child. A thousand sail

had Britain--America a dozen sloops and frigates altogether,--but

the little tubs had learned from their mother.

"The territory between the Lakes and the Ohio shall be for ever set

apart as an Indian territory," said England at the opening of the

peace negotiations. "The United States shall remove her armed vessels

from the lakes and give England the right of navigating the

Mississippi."

Clay, Gallatin, Adams packed up their grips preparatory to starting

home, when England bethought herself and came to better terms.

The next year America passed a law excluding foreigners from our

trade, and the British fur traders reluctantly crossed the border. But

they held Oregon by "Joint Occupation."

"All posts captured by either power shall be restored," said the

treaty. "There shall be joint occupancy of the Oregon Country for ten

years."

"A great mistake! a great mistake!" cried out Thomas Hart Benton, a

young lawyer who had settled in St. Louis. "In ten years that little

nest egg of 'Joint Occupation' will hatch out a lively fighting

chicken."

Benton was a Western man to the core,--he felt a responsibility for

all that sunset country. And why should he not? Missouri and Oregon

touched borders on the summit of the Rockies. Were they not next-door

neighbours, hobnobbing over the fence as it were? Every day at

Governor Clark's at St. Louis, he and Benton discussed that Oregon

"Joint Occupancy" clause.

"As if two nations ever peacefully occupied the same territory! I tell

you it is a physical impossibility," exclaimed Benton, jamming down

his wine-glass with a crash.

The War of 1812,--how Astor hated it! "But for that war," he used to

say, "I should have been the richest man that ever lived." As it was,

the British fur companies came in and gained a foothold from which

they were not ousted until American ox-teams crossed the plains and

American frontiersmen took the country. A million a year England

trapped from Oregon waters.

XIII

_PORTAGE DES SIOUX_

"Come and make treaties of friendship."

As his brother had done at the close of the Revolution, so now William

Clark sent to the tribes to make peace after the War of 1812.

"No person ought to be lazy to be de bearer of such good news," said

old Antoine Le Claire, the interpreter.

Up the rivers and toward the Lakes, runners carried the word of the

Red Head Chief, "Come, come to St. Louis!"

To the clay huts of the sable Pawnees of the Platte, to the reed

wigwams of the giant Osages, to the painted lodges of the Omahas, and

to the bark tents of the Chippewas, went "peace talks" and gifts and

invitations.

"De Iowas are haughty an' insolent!" St. Vrain, first back, laid their

answer on the table.

"De Kickapoo are glad of de peace, but de Sauk an' Winnebago insist on

war! De Sauk haf murdered deir messenger!"

That was Black Hawk. With a war party from Prairie du Chien he was met

by the news of peace.

"Peace?" Black Hawk wept when he heard it. He had been at the battle

of the Thames.

"De messenger to de Sioux are held at Rock River!"

One by one came runners into the Council Hall, and, cap in hand, stood

waiting. Outside, their horses pawed on the Rue, their boats were tied

at the river.

"Some one must pass Rock River, to the Sioux, Chippewas, and

Menomonees," said Clark. Not an interpreter stirred.

"We dare not go into dose hostile countrie," said Antoine Le Claire,

spokesman for the rest.

"What? With an armed boat?"

The silence was painful as the Governor looked over the council room.

"I will go."

Every eye was turned toward the speaker, James Kennerly, the

Governor's private secretary, the cousin of Julia and brother of

Harriet of Fincastle. The same spirit was there that led a whole

generation of his people to perish in the Revolution. His father had

been dragged from the field of Cowpens wrapped in the flag he had

rescued.

At the risk of his life, when no one else would venture, the faithful

secretary went up the Mississippi to bring in the absent tribes.

Black-eyed Elise, the daughter of Dr. Saugrain, wept all night to

think of it. Governor Clark himself had introduced Elise to his

secretary. How she counted the days!

"The Chippewas would have murdered me but for the timely arrival of

the Sioux," said Kennerly, on his safe return with the band of Rising

Moose.

"The Red Coats are gone!" said Rising Moose. "I rush in. I put out the

fire. I save the fort."

Without waiting for troops from St. Louis, forty-eight hours after the

news of peace the British had evacuated Prairie du Chien. A day or two

later they returned, took the cannon, and set fire to the fort with

the American flag flying.

Into the burning fort went Rising Moose, secured the flag and an

American medal, and brought them down to St. Louis.

While interpreters were speeding by horse and boat over half a hundred

trails, Manuel Lisa, sleepless warden of the plains, arrived with

forty-three chiefs and head men of the Missouri Sioux. Wild Indians

who never before had tasted bread, brought down in barges camped on

the margin of the Mississippi, the great council chiefs of their

tribes, moody, unjoyous, from the Stony Mountains. For weeks other

deputations followed, to the number of two thousand, to make treaties

and settle troubles arising out of the War of 1812.

Whether even yet a council could be held was a query in Governor

Clark's mind. Across the neighbouring Mississippi, Sacs, Foxes, Iowas

were raiding still, capturing horses and attacking people. That was

Black Hawk.

The eyes of the Missouri Sioux flashed. "Let us go and fight those

Sacs and Iowas. They shall trouble us no more." With difficulty were

they held to the council.

There was a steady and unalterable gloom of countenance, a melancholy,

sullen musing among the gathered tribes, as they camped on the council

ground at Portage des Sioux on the neck of land between the two rivers

at St. Charles. Over this neck crossed Sioux war parties in times

past, avoiding a long detour, bringing home their scalps.

Resplendent with oriental colour were the bluffs and the prairies.

Chiefs and warriors had brought their squaws and children,--Sioux from

the Lakes and the high points of the Mississippi in canoes of white

birch, light and bounding as cork upon the water; Sioux of the

Missouri in clumsy pirogues; Mandans in skin coracles, barges,

dug-outs, and cinnamon-brown fleets of last year's bark.

The panorama of forest and prairie was there,--Sioux of the Leaf,

Sioux of the Broad Leaf, and Sioux Who Shoot in the Pine Tops, in

hoods of feathers, Chinese featured Sioux, of smooth skins and Roman

noses, the ideal Indian stalking to and fro with forehead banded in

green and scarlet and eagle plumes.

For Wabasha, Little Crow, and Red Wing had come, great sachems of the

Sioux nation. The British officers at Drummond's Island in Lake Huron

had sent for Little Crow and Wabasha.

"I would thank you in the name of George III. for your services in the

war."

"My father," said Wabasha, "what is this I see on the floor before me?

A few knives and blankets! Is this all you promised at the beginning

of the war? Where are those promises you made? You told us you would

never let fall the hatchet until the Americans were driven beyond the

mountains. Will these presents pay for the men we lost? I have always

been able to make a living and can do so still."

"After we have fought for you," cried Little Crow, "endured many

hardships, lost some of our people, and awakened the vengeance of our

powerful neighbours, you make a peace and leave us to obtain such

terms as we can! You no longer need us and offer these goods for

having deserted us. We will not take them."

Kicking the presents contemptuously with his foot, Little Crow turned

away.

"Arise, let us go down to the Red Head Parshasha!" In handsome bark

canoes propelled by sails alone, the Sioux came down to St. Louis.

Walking among their elliptical tents, lounging on panther skins at

their wigwam doors, waited the redmen, watching, lynx-eyed, losing

nothing of the scene before them. Beaded buckskin glittered in the

sun, tiny bells tinkled from elbow to ankle, and sashes outrivalled

Louisiana sunsets.

Half-naked Osages with helmet-crests and eagle-quills, full-dressed in

breech-clouts and leggings fringed with scalp-locks, the tallest men

in North America, from their warm south hills, mingled with

Pottawattamies of the Illinois, makers of fire, Shawnees with

vermilion around their eyes, Sacs, of the red badge, and Foxes,

adroitest of thieves, all drumming on their tambourines. Winnebagoes,

fish eaters, had left their nets on the northern lakes, Omahas their

gardens on the Platte, and Ojibway arrow makers sat chipping, chipping

as the curious crowds walked by. For all the neighbouring country had

gathered to view the Indian camp of 1815.

Oblivious, contemptuous perhaps, of staring crowds, the industrious

women skinned and roasted dogs on sticks, the warriors gambled with

one another, staking their tents, skins, rifles, dogs, and squaws.

Here and there sachems were mending rifles, princesses carrying water,

children playing ball.

About the first of July, Governor Clark of Missouri, Governor Ninian

Edwards of Illinois, and Auguste Chouteau of St. Louis, opened the

council,--one of the greatest ever held in the Mississippi Valley.

Auguste Chouteau, prime vizier of all the old Spanish commandants,

now naturally slipped into the same office with Clark, and Governor

Edwards of Illinois, who as a father had guarded the frontier against

the wiles of Tecumseh, and had risked his entire fortune to arm the

militia,--all in queues, high collared coats, and ruffled shirts,

faced each other and the chiefs.

In front of their neatly arranged tents sat the tawny warriors in

imposing array, with dignified attention to the interpretation of each

sentence.

"The long and bloody war is over. The British have gone back over the

Big Water," said Governor Clark, "and now we have sent for you, my

brothers, to conclude a treaty of peace."

"Heigh!" cried all the Indians in deep-toned resonance that rolled

like a Greek chorus to the bluffs beyond. The sky smiled down as on

the old Areopagus, the leaves of the forest rustled, the river swept

laughing by.

"Every injury or act of hostility by one or either of us against the

other, shall be mutually forgiven and forgot."

"Heigh! heigh! heig-h!"

"There shall be perpetual peace and friendship between us."

"Heigh!"

"You will acknowledge yourselves under the protection of the United

States, and of no other nation, power, or sovereign whatsoever."

"Heigh!"

A Teton Sioux who had come down with Lisa struggled to his feet,

approached, shook hands with the commissioners, then retreated and

fixed his keen eye on the Governor. His voice rang clear over the

assembled thousands,--

"We have come down expressly to notify you, our father, that we will

assist in chastising those nations hostile to our government."

The two factions faced each other. Scowls of lightning hate flashed

over the council. But the wisdom and tact of Clark were equal to

regiments. "The fighting has ended," he said. "The peace has come."

"Heigh!" shouted all the Indians. "Heig-h!"

Partisan was there, the Teton chief, who with Black Buffalo had made

an attempt to capture Clark on the way to the Pacific. And now

Partisan was bristling to fight for Clark.

Wabasha arose, like a figure out of one of Catlin's pictures, in a

chief's costume, with bullock horns and eagle feathers. There was a

stir. With a profile like the great Condé, followed by his pipe

bearers with much ceremony, the hereditary chief from the Falls of St.

Anthony walked up to Governor Clark.

"I shake hands," he said.

Every neck was craned. When before had Wabasha stood? In their

northern councils he spoke sitting. "I am called upon to stand only in

the presence of my Great Father at Washington or Governor Clark at St.

Louis. But I am not a warrior," said Wabasha. "My people can prosper

only at peace with one another and the whites. Against my advice some

of my young men went into the war."

The fiery eyes of Little Crow flashed, the aquiline curve of his nose

lifted, like the beak of an eagle. He had come down from his

bark-covered cabin near St. Paul.