CHAPTER I

THE

MAGNIFICENT

ADVENTURE

_Being the Story of the World's

Greatest Exploration and the

Romance of a Very Gallant

Gentleman._

A NOVEL

BY

EMERSON HOUGH

AUTHOR OF

THE COVERED WAGON,

NORTH OF 36, ETC.

ILLUSTRATED BY

ARTHUR I. KELLER

NEW YORK

GROSSET & DUNLAP

PUBLISHERS

Made in the United States of America

COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY

EMERSON HOUGH

COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY THE FRANK A. MUNSEY COMPANY

Printed in the United States of America

[Illustration: "'Him Ro'shones,' replied the girl"

[PAGE 219]]

TO

ROBERT H. DAVIS

GOOD FRIEND

INVALUABLE COLLABORATOR

CONTENTS

PART I

CHAPTER PAGE

I. MOTHER AND SON 3

II. MERIWETHER AND THEODOSIA 15

III. MR. BURR AND MR. MERRY 30

IV. PRESIDENT AND SECRETARY 36

V. THE PELL-MELL AND SOME CONSEQUENCES 47

VI. THE GREAT CONSPIRACY 71

VII. COLONEL BURR AND HIS DAUGHTER 86

VIII. THE PARTING 94

IX. MR. THOMAS JEFFERSON 105

X. THE THRESHOLD OF THE WEST 117

XI. THE TAMING OF PATRICK GASS 128

XII. CAPTAIN WILLIAM CLARK 137

XIII. UNDER THREE FLAGS 143

XIV. THE RENT IN THE ARMOR 153

PART II

I. UNDER ONE FLAG 167

II. THE MYSTERIOUS LETTER 182

III. THE DAY'S WORK 191

IV. THE CROSSROADS OF THE WEST 199

V. THE APPEAL 208

VI. WHICH WAY? 218

VII. THE MOUNTAINS 230

VIII. TRAIL'S END 241

IX. THE SUMMONS 250

X. THE ABYSS 256

XI. THE BEE 272

XII. WHAT VOICE HAD CALLED? 280

XIII. THE NEWS 292

XIV. THE GUESTS OF A NATION 300

XV. MR. JEFFERSON'S ADVICE 308

XVI. THE QUALITY OF MERCY 316

XVII. THE FRIENDS 328

XVIII. THE WILDERNESS 336

XIX. DOWN TO THE SEA 351

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

"'Him Ro'shones,' replied the girl" _Frontispiece_

FACING PAGE

"'Mistah Thomas Jeffahson!' was his sole announcement" 50

"'Oh, Theo, what have I done?'" 162

"Her face indeed!" 252

THE

MAGNIFICENT ADVENTURE

CHAPTER I

MOTHER AND SON

A woman, tall, somewhat angular, dark of hair and eye, strong of

features--a woman now approaching middle age--sat looking out over the

long, tree-clad slopes that ran down from the gallery front of the

mansion house to the gate at the distant roadway. She had sat thus for

some moments, many moments, her gaze intently fixed, as though waiting

for something--something or someone that she did not now see, but

expected soon to see.

It was late afternoon of a day so beautiful that not even old

Albemarle, beauty spot of Virginia, ever produced one more

beautiful--not in the hundred years preceding that day, nor in the

century since then. For this was more than a hundred years ago; and

what is now an ancient land was then a half opened region, settled

only here and there by the great plantations of the well-to-do. The

house that lay at the summit of the long and gentle slope, flanked by

its wide galleries--its flung doors opening it from front to rear to

the gaze as one approached--had all the rude comfort and assuredness

usual with the gentry of that time and place.

It was the privilege, and the habit, of the Widow Lewis to sit idly

when she liked, but her attitude now was not that of idleness.

Intentness, reposeful acceptance of life, rather, showed in her

motionless, long-sustained position. She was patient, as women are;

but her strong pose, its freedom from material support, her restrained

power to do or to endure, gave her the look of owning something more

than resignation, something more than patience. A strong figure of a

woman, one would have said had one seen her, sitting on the gallery of

her old home a hundred and twenty-four years ago.

The Widow Lewis stared straight down at the gate, a quarter of a mile

away, with yearning in her gaze. But as so often happens, what she

awaited did not appear at the time and place she herself had set.

There fell at the western end of the gallery a shadow--a tall shadow,

but she did not see it. She did not hear the footfall, not stealthy,

but quite silent, with which the tall owner of the shadow came toward

her from the gallery end.

It was a young man, or rather boy, no more than eighteen years of age,

who stood now and gazed at her after his silent approach, so like that

of an Indian savage. Half savage himself he seemed now, as he stood,

clad in the buckskin garments of the chase, then not unusual in the

Virginian borderlands among settlers and hunters, and not held _outré_

among a people so often called to the chase or to war.

His tunic was of dressed deer hide, his well-fitting leggings also of

that material. His feet were covered with moccasins, although his hat

and the neat scarf at his neck were those of a gentleman. He was a

practical youth, one would have said, for no ornament of any sort was

to be seen upon his garb. In his hand he carried a long rifle of the

sort then used thereabout. At his belt swung the hide of a raccoon,

the bodies of a few squirrels.

Had you been a close observer, you would have found each squirrel shot

fair through the head. Indeed, a look into the gray eye of the

silent-paced youth would have assured you in advance of his skill with

his weapons--you would have known that to be natural with him.

You would not soon have found his like, even in that land of tall

hunting men. He was a grand young being as he stood there, straight

and clean-limbed; hard-bitten of muscle, albeit so young; powerful and

graceful in his stride. The beauty of youth was his, and of a strong

heredity--that you might have seen.

The years of youth were his, yes; but the lightness of youth did not

rest on his brow. While he was not yet eighteen, the gravity of

manhood was his.

He did not smile now, as he saw his mother sitting there absorbed,

gazing out for his return, and not seeing him now that he had

returned. Instead, he stepped forward, and quietly laid a hand upon

her shoulder, not with any attempt to surprise or startle her, but as

if he knew that she would accept it as the announcement of his

presence.

He was right. The strong figure in the chair did not start away. No

exclamation came from the straight mouth of the face now turned

toward him. Evidently the nerves of these two were not of the sort

readily stampeded.

The young man's mother at first did not speak to him. She only reached

up her own hand to take that which lay upon her shoulder. They

remained thus for a moment, until at last the youth stepped back to

lean his rifle against the wall.

"I am late, mother," said he at length, as he turned and, seating

himself at her feet, threw his arm across her lap--himself but boy

again now, and not the hunter and the man.

She stroked his dark hair, not foolishly fond, but with a sort of

stern maternal care, smoothing it back in place where it belonged,

straightening out the riot it had assumed. It made a mane above his

forehead and reached down his neck to his shoulders, so heavy that

where its dark mass was lifted it showed the skin of his neck white

beneath.

"You are late, yes."

"And you waited--so long?"

"I am always waiting for you, Merne," said she. She used the

Elizabethan vowel, as one should pronounce "bird," with no sound of

"u"--"Mairne," the name sounded as she spoke it. And her voice was

full and rich and strong, as was her son's; musically strong.

"I am always waiting for you, Merne," said she. "But I long ago

learned not to expect anything else of you." She spoke with not the

least reproach in her tone. "No, I only knew that you would come back

in time, because you told me that you would."

"And you did not fear for me, then--gone overnight in the woods?" He

half smiled at that thought himself.

"You know I would not. I know you, what you are--born woodsman. No, I

trust you to care for yourself in any wild country, my son, and to

come back. And then--to go back again into the forest. When will it

be, my son? Tomorrow? In two days, or four, or six? Sometime you will

go to the wilderness again. It draws you, does it not?"

She turned her head slightly toward the west, where lay the forest

from which the boy had but now emerged. He did not smile, did not

deprecate. He was singularly mature in his actions, though but

eighteen years of age.

"I did not desert my duty, mother," said he at length.

"Oh, no, you would not do that, Merne!" returned the widow.

"Please, mother," said he suddenly, "I want you to call me by my full

name--that of your people. Am I not Meriwether, too?"

The hand on his forehead ceased its gentle movement, fell to its

owner's lap. A sigh passed his mother's set lips.

"Yes, my son, Meriwether," said she. "This is the last journey! I have

lost you, then, it seems? You do not wish to be my boy any longer? You

are a man altogether, then?"

"I am Meriwether Lewis, mother," said he gravely, and no more.

"Yes!" She spoke absently, musingly. "Yes, you always were!"

"I went westward, clear across the Ragged Mountains," said the youth.

"These"--and he pointed with contempt to the small trophies at his

belt--"will do for the darkies at the stables. I put yon old ringtail

up a tree last night, on my way home, and thought it was as well to

wait till dawn, till I could see the rifle-sights; and afterward--the

woods were beautiful today. As to the trails, even if there is no

trail, I know the way back home--you know that, mother."

"I know that, my son, yes. You were born for the forest. I fear I

shall not hold you long on this quiet farm."

"All in time, mother! I am to stay here with you until I am fitted to

go higher. You know what Mr. Jefferson has said to me. I am for

Washington, mother, one of these days--for I hold it sure that Mr.

Jefferson will go there in some still higher place. He was my father's

friend, and is ours still."

"It may be that you will go to Washington, my son," said his mother;

"I do not know. But will you stay there? The forest will call to you

all your life--all your life! Do I not know you, then? Can I not see

your life--all your life--as plainly as if it were written? Do I not

know--your mother? Why should not your mother know?"

He looked around at her rather gravely once again, unsmilingly, for he

rarely smiled.

"How do you know, mother? What do you know? Tell me--about myself!

Then I will tell you also. We shall see how we agree as to what I am

and what I ought to do!"

"My son, it is no question of what you ought to do, for that blends

too closely in fate with what you surely will do--must do--because it

was written for you. Yonder forest will always call to you." She

turned now toward the sun, sinking across the red-leaved forest lands.

"The wilderness is your home. You will go out into it and

return--often; and then at last you will go and not come back

again--not to me--not to anyone will you come back."

The youth did not move as she sat, her hands on his head. Her voice

went on, even and steady.

"You are old, Meriwether Lewis! It is time, now. You are a man. You

_always_ were a man! You were born old. You never have been a boy, and

never can be one. You never were a child, but always a man. When you

were a baby, you did not smile; when you were a boy, you always had

your way. My boy, a long time ago I ceased to oppose that will of

yours--I knew that it was useless. But, ah, how I have loved that will

when I felt it was behind your promise! I knew you would do what you

had set for yourself to do. I knew you would come back with deeds in

your hand, my boy--gained through that will which never would bend for

me or for anyone else in the world!"

He remained motionless, apparently unaffected, as his mother went on.

"You were always old, always grown up, always resolved, always your

own master--always Meriwether Lewis. When you were born, you were not

a child. When the old nurse brought you to me--I can see her black

face grinning now--she carried you held by the feet instead of lying

on her arm. You _stood_, you were so strong! Your hair was dark and

full even then. You were old! In two weeks you turned where you heard

a sound--you recognized sight and sound together, as no child usually

does for months. You were beautiful, my boy, so strong, so

straight--ah, yes!--but you never were a boy at all. When you should

have been a baby, you did not weep and you did not smile. I never knew

you to do so. From the first, you always were a man."

She paused, but still he did not speak.

"That was well enough, for later we were left alone. But your father

was in you. Do I not know well enough where you got that settled

melancholy of yours, that despondency, that somber grief--call it what

you like--that marked him all his life, and even in his death? That

came from him, your father. I thank God I did not give you that,

knowing what life must hold for you in suffering! He suffered, yes,

but not as you will. And you must--you must, my son. Beyond all other

men, you will suffer!"

"You were better named Cassandra, mother!" Yet the young man scarce

smiled even now.

"Yes, I am a prophetess, all too sooth a prophetess, my son. I see

ahead as only a mother can see--perhaps as only one of the old

Highland blood can see. I am soothseer and soothsayer, because you are

blood of my blood, bone of my bone, and I cannot help but know. I

cannot help but know what that melancholy and that resolution, all

these combined, must spell for you. You know how his heart was racked

at times?"

The boy nodded now.

"Then know how your own must be racked in turn!" said she. "My son, it

is no ordinary fate that will be yours. You will go forward at all

costs; you will keep your word bright as the knife in your belt--you

will drive yourself. What that means to you in agony--what that means

when your will is set against the unalterable and the inevitable--I

wish--oh, I wish I could not see it! But I do see it, now, all laid

out before me--all, all! Oh, Merne--may I not call you Merne once more

before I let you go?"

She let her hands fall from his head to his shoulders as she gazed

steadily out beyond him, as if looking into his future; but she

herself sat, her strong face composed. She might, indeed, have been a

prophetess of old.

"Tragedy is yours, my son," said she, slowly, "not happiness. No woman

will ever come and lie in your arms happy and content."

"Mother!"

He half flung off her hands, but she laid them again more firmly on

his shoulders, and went on speaking, as if half in reverie, half in

trance, looking down the long slope of green and gold as if it showed

the vista of the years.

"You will love, my boy, but with your nature how could love mean

happiness to you? Love? No man could love more terribly. You will be

intent, resolved, but the firmness of your will means that much more

suffering for you. You will suffer, my boy--I see that for you, my

first-born boy! You will love--why should you not, a man fit to love

and be loved by any woman? But that love, the stronger it grows, will

but burn you the deeper. You will struggle through on your own path;

but happiness does not lie at the end of that path for you. You will

succeed, yes--you could not fail; but always the load on your

shoulders will grow heavier and heavier. You will carry it alone,

until at last it will be too much for you. Your strong heart will

break. You will lie down and die. Such a fate for you, Merne, my

boy--such a man as you will be!"

She sighed, shivered, and looked about her, startled, as if she had

spoken aloud in some dream.

"Well, then, go on!" she said, and withdrew her hands from his

shoulders. The faces of both were now gazing straight on over the

gold-flecked slope before them. "Go on, you are a man. I know you will

not turn back from what you undertake. You will not change, you will

not turn--because you cannot. You were born to earn and not to own; to

find, but not to possess. But as you have lived, so you will die."

"You give me no long shrift, mother?" said the youth, with a twinkle

in his eye.

"How can I? I can only tell you what is in the book of life. Do I not

know? A mother always loves her son; so it takes all her courage to

face what she knows will be his lot. Any mother can read her son's

future--if she dares to read it. She knows--she knows!"

There was a long silence; then the widow continued.

"Listen, Merne," she said. "You call me a prophetess of evil. I am not

that. Do you think I speak only in despair, my boy? No, there is

something larger than mere happiness. Listen, and believe me, for now

I could not fail to know. I tell you that your great desire, the great

wish of your life, shall be yours! You never will relinquish it, you

always will possess it, and at last it will be yours."

Again silence fell between them before she went on, her hand again

resting on her son's dark hair.

"Your great desire will cost me my son. Be it so! We breed men for the

world, we women, and we give them up. Out of the agony of our hearts,

we do and must always give them up. That is the price I must pay. But

I give you up to the great hope, the great thing of your life. Should

I complain? Am I not your mother, and therefore a woman? And should a

woman complain? But, Oh, Merne, Merne, my son, my boy!"

She drew his head back, so that she could see deep into his eyes. Her

dark brows half frowning, she gazed down upon him, not so much in

tenderness as in intentness. For the first time in many months--for

the last time in his life--she kissed him on the forehead; and then

she let him go.

He rose now, and, silently as he had come, passed around the end of

the wide gallery.

Her gaze did not follow him. She sat still looking down the

golden-green slope where the leaves were dropping silently. She sat,

her chin in her hand, her elbows upon her knees, facing that future,

somber but splendid, to which she had devoted her son, and which in

later years he so singularly fulfilled.

That was the time when the mother of Meriwether Lewis gave him to his

fate--his fate, so closely linked with yours and mine.

CHAPTER II

MERIWETHER AND THEODOSIA

Soft is the sun in the summer season at Washington, softer at times

than any old Dan Chaucer ever knew; but again so ardent that anyone

who would ride abroad would best do so in the early morning. This is

true today, and it was true when the capital city lay in the heart of

a sweeping forest at the edge of a yet unconquered morass.

The young man who now rode into this forest, leaving behind him the

open streets of the straggling city--then but beginning to lighten

under the rays of the morning sun--was one who evidently knew his

Washington. He knew his own mind as well, for he rode steadily, as if

with some definite purpose, to some definite point, looking between

his horse's ears.

Sitting as erect and as easily as any cavalier of the world's best, he

was tall in his saddle seat, his legs were long and straight. His

boots were neatly varnished, his coat well cut, his gloves of good

pattern for that time. His hat swept over a mass of dark hair, which

fell deep in its loose cue upon his neck. His cravat was immaculate

and well tied. He was a good figure of a man, a fine example of the

young manhood of America as he rode, his light, firm hand half

unconsciously curbing the antics of the splendid animal beneath him--a

horse deep bay in color, high-mettled, a mount fit for a monarch--or

for a young gentleman of Virginia a little more than one hundred years

ago.

If it was not the horse of a monarch the young man bestrode, none the

less it was the horse of one who insisted that his stables should be

as good as those of any king--none less, if you please, than Mr.

Thomas Jefferson, then President of the United States of America.

This particular animal was none other than Arcturus, Mr. Jefferson's

favorite saddler. It was the duty as well as the delight of Mr.

Jefferson's private secretary to give Arcturus and his stable-mate,

Wildair, their exercise on alternate days. On this summer morning

Arcturus was enjoying his turn beneath his rider--who forsooth was

more often in the saddle than Mr. Jefferson himself.

Horse and rider made a picture in perfect keeping as they fared on

toward the little-used forest road which led out Rock Creek way.

Yonder, a few miles distant, was a stone mill owned by an old German,

who sometimes would offer a cup of coffee to an early horseman.

Perhaps this rider knew the way from earlier wanderings thither on

other summer mornings.

Arcturus curveted along and tossed his head, mincing daintily, and

making all manner of pretense at being dangerous, with sudden gusts of

speed and shakings of his head and blowing out of his nostrils--though

all the time the noble bay was as gentle as a dog. Whether or not he

really were dangerous would have made small difference to the young

man who bestrode him, for his seat was that of the born horseman.

They advanced comfortably enough, the rider seemingly less alive to

the joys of the morning than was the animal beneath him. The young

man's face was grave, his mouth unsmiling--a mouth of half Indian

lines, broken in its down-sweeping curve merely by the point of a bow

which spoke of gentleness as well as strength. His head was that of

the new man, the American, the new man of a new world, young and

strong, a continent that had lain fallow from the birth of time.

What burdened the mind of a man like this, of years which should have

left him yet in full attunement with the morning of life and with the

dawn of a country? Why should he pay so little heed to the playful

advances of Arcturus, inviting him for a run along the shady road?

Arcturus could not tell. He could but prance insinuatingly, his ears

forward, his head tossed, his eye now and again turned about,

inquiring.

But though the young man, moody and abstracted, still looked on ahead,

some of his senses seemed yet on guard. His head turned at the

slightest sound of the forest life that came to him. If a twig

cracked, he heard it. If a green nut cut by some early squirrel

clattered softly on the leaves, that was not lost to him.

A bevy of partridges, feeding at dawn along the edge of the forest

path, whirled up in his horse's face; and though he held the startled

animal close, he followed the flight of the birds with the trained eye

of the fowler, and marked well where they pitched again. He did these

things unconsciously as one well used to the woods, even though his

eye turned again straight down the road and the look of intentness, of

sadness, almost of melancholy, once more settled upon his features.

He advanced into the wood until all sight of the city was quite cut

off from him, until the light grew yet dimmer along the forest road,

in places almost half covered with a leafy canopy, until at length he

came to the valley of the little stream. He followed the trail as it

rambled along the bank toward the mill, through scenes apparently

familiar to him.

Abstracted as he was he must have been alert, alive, for now,

suddenly, he broke his moody reverie at some sound which he heard on

ahead. He reined in for just an instant, then loosed the bridle and

leaned forward. The horse under him sprang forward in giant strides.

It was the sound of a voice that the young cavalier had heard--the

voice of a woman--apparently a woman in some distress. What cavalier

at any time of the world has not instinctively leaped forward at such

sound? In less than half a moment the rider was around the turn of the

leafy trail.

She was there, the woman who had cried out, herself mounted, and now

upon the point of trying conclusions with her mount. Whether

dissatisfaction with the latter or some fear of her own had caused

her to cry out might have been less certain, had it not been sure that

her eye was at the moment fastened, not upon the fractious steed, but

upon the cause of his unwonted misbehavior.

The keen eye of the young man looked with hers, and found the

reason for the sudden scene. A serpent, some feet in length--one

of the mottled, harmless species sometimes locally called the

blow-snake--obviously had come out into the morning sun to warm

himself, and his yellow body, lying loose and uncoiled, had been

invisible to horse and rider until they were almost upon it. Then,

naturally, the serpent had moved his head, and both horse and rider

had seen him, to the dismay of both.

This the young man saw and understood in a second, even as he spurred

forward alongside the plunging animal. His firm hand on the bridle

brought both horses back to their haunches. An instant later both had

control of their mounts again, and had set them down to their paces in

workmanlike fashion.

There was color in the young woman's face, but it was the color of

courage, of resolution. There was breeding in every line of her. Class

and lineage marked her as she sat easily, her supple young body

accommodating itself handsomely to the restrained restiveness of the

steed beneath her. She rode with perfect confidence, as an experienced

horsewoman, and was well turned out in a close habit, neither old nor

new.

Her dark hair--cut rather squarely across her forehead after an

individual fashion of her own--was surmounted by a slashed hat,

decorated with a wide-flung plume of smoky color, caught with a jewel

at the side. Both jewel and plume had come, no doubt, in some ship

from across seas. Her hands were small, and gloved as well as might be

at that day of the world. There was small ornament about her; nor did

this young woman need ornament beyond the color of her cheek and hair

and eye, and perhaps the touch of a bold ribbon at her throat, which

held a white collar closer to a neck almost as white.

An aristocrat, you must have called her, had you seen her in any

chance company. And had you been a young man such as this, and had you

met her alone, in some sort of agitation, and had consent been given

you--or had you taken consent--surely you would have been loath to

part company with one so fair, and would have ridden on with her as he

did now.

But at first they did not speak. A quick, startled look came into the

face of the young woman. A deeper shade glowed upon the cheek of the

cavalier, reddening under the skin--a flush which shamed him, but

which he could not master. He only kept his eyes straight between his

horse's ears as he rode--after he had raised his hat and bowed at the

close of the episode.

"I am to thank Captain Lewis once more," began the young woman, in a

voice vibrant and clear--the sweetest, kindest voice in the world. "It

is good fortune that you rode abroad so early this morning. You always

come at need!"

He turned upon her, mute for a time, yet looking full into her face.

It was sadness, not boldness, not any gay challenge, that marked his

own.

"Can you then call it good fortune?" His own voice was low,

suppressed.

"Why not, then?"

"You did not need me. A moment, and you would have been in command

again--there was no real need of me. Ah, you never need me!"

"Yet you come. You were here, had the need been worse. And, indeed, I

was quite off my guard--I must have been thinking of something else."

"And I also."

"And there was the serpent."

"Madam, there was the serpent! And why not? Is this not Eden? I swear

it is paradise enough for me. Tell me, why is it that in the glimpses

the sages give us of paradise they no more than lift the curtain--and

let it fall again?"

"Captain Meriwether Lewis is singularly gloomy this morning!"

"Not more than I have been always. How brief was my little hour! Yet

for that time I knew paradise--as I do now. We should part here,

madam, now, forever. Yon serpent spelled danger for both of us."

"For both of us?"

"No, forgive me! None the less, I could not help my thoughts--cannot

help them now. I ride here every morning. I saw your horse's

hoof-marks some two miles back. Do you suppose I did not know whose

they were?"

"And you followed me? Ah!"

"I suppose I did, and yet I did not. If I did I knew I was riding to

my fate."

She would have spoken--her lips half parted--but what she might have

said none heard.

He went on:

"I have ridden here since first I saw you turn this way one morning. I

guessed this might be your haunt at dawn. I have ridden here

often--and feared each time that I might meet you. Perhaps I came this

morning in the same way, not knowing that you were near, but hoping

that you might be. You see, madam, I speak the absolute truth with

you."

"You have never spoken aught else to any human soul. That I know."

"And yet you try to evade the truth? Why deceive your heart about it,

since I have not deceived my own? I have faced it out in my own heart,

and I have, I trust, come off the victor. At some cost!"

Her face was troubled. She looked aside as she replied in a voice low,

but firm:

"Any woman would be glad to hear such words from Captain Lewis, and I

am glad. But--the honest wife never lived who could listen to them

often."

"I know that," he said simply.

"No!" Her voice was very low now; her eyes soft and cast down as they

fell upon a ring under her glove. "We must not meet, Captain

Meriwether Lewis. At least, we must not meet thus alone in the woods.

It might cause talk. The administration has enemies enough, as you

know--and never was a woman who did not have enemies, no matter how

clean her life has been."

"Clean as the snow, yours! I have never asked you to be aught else,

and never will. I sought you once, when I rode from Virginia to New

York--when I first had my captain's pay, before Mr. Jefferson asked me

to join his family. Before that time I had too little to offer you;

but then, with my hopes and my ambitions, I ventured. I made that

journey to offer you my hand. I was two weeks late--you were already

wedded to Mr. Alston. Then I learned that happiness never could be

mine.... Yes, we must part! You are the only thing in life I fear. And

I fear as well for you. One wagging tongue in this hotbed of

gossip--and there is harm for you, whom all good men should wish to

shield."

As he rode, speaking thus, his were the features of a man of

tremendous emotions, a resolute man, a man of strength, of passions

not easily put down.

She turned aside her own face for an instant. At last her little hand

went to him in a simple gesture of farewell. Meriwether Lewis leaned

and kissed it reverently as he rode.

"Good-by!" said he. "Now we may go on for the brief space that remains

for us," he added a moment later. "No one is likely to ride this way

this morning. Let us go on to the old mill. May I give you a cup of

coffee there?"

"I trust Captain Meriwether Lewis," she replied.

They advanced silently, and presently came in sight of a little

cascade above a rocky shallowing of the stream. Below this, after

they had splashed through the ford, they saw the gray stone walls of

Rock Creek Mill.

The miller was a plain man, and silent. Other folk, younger or older,

married or single, had come hither of a morning, and he spoke the name

of none. He welcomed these two after his fashion. Under the shade of a

great tree, which flung an arm out to the rivulet, he pulled out a

little table spread in white and departed to tell his wife of the

company. She, busy and smiling, came out presently with her best in

old china and linen and wherewith to go with both.

They sat now, face to face across the little table, their horses

cropping the dewy grass near by. Lewis's riding crop and gloves lay on

his knee. He cast his hat upon the grass. Little birds hopped about on

the ground and flitted here and there in the trees, twittering. A

mocker, trilling in sudden ecstacy of life, spread a larger melody

through all the wood.

The sun drew gently up in the heavens, screened by the waving trees.

The ripple of the stream was very sweet.

"Theodosia, look!" said the young man, suddenly swinging a gesture

about him. "Did I not say right? It is Eden! Ah, what a pity it is

that Eden must ever be the same--a serpent--repentance--and farewell!

Yet it was so beautiful."

"A sinless Eden, sir."

"No! I will not lie--I will not say that I do not love you more than

ever. That is my sin; so I must go away. This must be our last

meeting--I am fortunate that it came by chance today."

"Going away--where, then, my friend?"

"Into the West. It always has called me. Ah, if only I had remained in

the Indian country yonder, where I belonged, and never made my ride to

New York--to learn that I had come too late! But the West still is

there--the wilderness still exists to welcome such as me!"

"But you will--you will come back again?"

"It is in the lap of the gods. I do not know or care. But my plans are

all arranged. Mr. Jefferson and I have agreed that it is almost time

to start. You see, Theodosia, I am now back from my schooling. You

behold in me, madam, a scientist! At least I am competent to read by

the sun and stars, can reckon longitude and latitude--as one must, to

journey into the desert yonder. If only I dared orient my soul as

well!"

"You would never doubt my faith in my husband."

"No! Of course, you love your husband. I could not look at you a

second time if you did not."

"You are a good man, Meriwether Lewis!"

"Do not say it! I am a man accursed of evil passions--the most unhappy

of all men. There is nothing else, I say, in all the world that I fear

but my love for you. Tell me it will not last--tell me it will

change--tell me that I shall forget! I should not believe you--but

tell me that. Does a man never forget? Success--for others;

happiness--for someone else. My mother said that was to be my fate.

What did she mean?"

"She meant, Meriwether Lewis, that you were a great man, a great

soul! Only a man of noble soul could speak as you have spoken to me.

We women, in our souls, love something noble and good and strong. Then

we imagine someone like that. We believe, or try to believe, or say

that we believe; but always----"

"And a woman may divide not love, only love of love itself?"

"I shall love your future, and shall watch it always," she replied,

coloring. "You will be a great man, and there will be a great place

for you."

"And what then?"

"Do not ask what then. You ask if men never change. Alas, they do, all

too frequently! Do not deny the imperious way of nature.

Only--remember me as long as you can, Meriwether Lewis."

She spoke softly, and the color of her cheek, still rising, told of

her self-reproof.

He turned suddenly at this, a wonderfully sweet smile now upon his

face.

"As long as I can?"

"Yes. Let your own mind run on the ambitions of a proud man, a strong

man. Ambition--power--place--these things will all be yours in the

coming years. They belong to any man of ability such as yours, and I

covet them for you. I shall pray always for your success; but success

makes men forget."

He still sat looking at her unmoved, with thoughts in his heart that

he would not have cared to let her know. She went on still, half

tremblingly:

"I want to see you happy after a time--with some good woman at your

side--your children by you--in your own home. I want everything for

you which ought to come to any man. And yet I know how hard it is to

alter your resolve, once formed. Captain Lewis, you are a stubborn

man, a hard man!"

He shook his head.

"Yes, I do not seem to change," said he simply. "I hope I shall be

able to carry my burden and to hold my trail."

"Fie! I will not have such talk on a morning like this."

Fearlessly she reached out her hand to his, which lay upon the table.

She smiled at him, but he looked down, the lean fingers of his own

hand not trembling nor responding.

If she sensed the rigidity of the muscles which held his fingers

outward, at least she feared it not. If she felt the repression which

kept him silent, at least she feared it not. Her intuitions told her

at last that the danger was gone. His hand did not close on hers.

She raised her cup and saluted laughingly.

"A good journey, Meriwether Lewis," said she, "and a happy return from

it! Cast away such melancholy--you will forget all this!"

"I ask you not to wound me more than need be. I am hard to die. I can

carry many wounds, but they may pain me none the less."

"Forgive me, then," she said, and once more her small hand reached out

toward him. "I would not wound you. I asked you only to remember me

as----"

"As----"

"As I shall you, of course. And I remember that bright day when you

came to me--yonder in New York. You offered me all that any man can

ever offer any woman. I am proud of that! I told my husband, yes. He

never mentions your name save in seriousness and respect. I am

ambitious for you. All the Burrs are full of ambition, and I am a

Burr, as you know. How long will it be before you come back to higher

office and higher place? Will it be six months hence?"

"More likely six years. If there is healing for me, the wilderness

alone must give it."

"I shall be an old woman--old and sallow from the Carolina suns. You

will have forgotten me then."

"It is enough," said he. "You have lightened my burden for me as much

as may be--you have made the trial as easy as any can. The rest is for

me. At least I can go feeling that I have not wronged you in any way."

"Yes, Meriwether Lewis," said she quietly, "there has not been one

word or act of yours to cause you regret, or me. You have put no

secret on me that I must keep. That was like a man! I trust you will

find it easy to forget me."

He raised a hand.

"I said, madam, that I am hard to die. I asked you not to wound me

overmuch. Do not talk to me of hopes or sympathy. I do not ask--I will

not have it! Only this remains to comfort me--if I had laid on my soul

the memory of one secret that I had dared to place on yours, ah, then,

how wretched would life be for me forever after! That thought, it

seems to me, I could not endure."

"Go, then, my savage gentleman, and let me----"

"And let you never see my face again?"

She rose and stood looking at him, her own eyes wet with a sudden

moisture.

"Women worth loving are so few!" she said slowly. "Clean men are so

few! How a woman could have loved you, Meriwether Lewis! How some

woman ought to love you! Yes, go now," she concluded. "Yes, go!"

"Mrs. Alston will wait with you here for a few moments," said

Meriwether Lewis to the miller's wife quietly. He stood with his

bridle rein across his arm. "See that she is very comfortable. She

might have a second cup of your good coffee?"

He swung into his saddle, reined his horse about, turned and bowed

formally to his late _vis-à-vis_, who still remained seated at the

table. Then he was off at such speed as left Arcturus no more cause to

fret at his bridle rein.

CHAPTER III

MR. BURR AND MR. MERRY

The young Virginian had well-nigh made his way out over the two miles

or so of sheltered roadway, when he heard hoof beats on ahead, and

slackened his own speed. He saw two horsemen approaching, both well

mounted, coming on at a handsome gait.

Of these, one was a stout and elderly man of no special shape at all,

who sat his horse with small grace, his florid face redder for his

exercise, his cheeks mottled with good living and hard riding. He was

clad in scrupulous riding costume, and seemed, indeed, a person of

some importance. The badge of some order or society showed on his

breast, and his entire air--intent as he was upon his present business

of keeping company with a skilled horseman--marked him as one

accustomed to attention from others. A servant in the costume of an

English groom rode at a short distance behind him.

The second man was lighter, straight and trim of figure, with an

erectness and exactness of carriage which marked him as a soldier at

some part of his life. He was clad with extreme neatness, well booted

also, and sat his mount with the nonchalance of the trained horseman.

His own garb and face showed not the slightest proof that he had been

riding hard.

Indeed, he seemed one whom no condition or circumstance could deprive

of a cool immaculateness. He was a man to be marked in any

company--especially so by the peculiar brilliance of his full, dark

eye, which had a piercing, searching glint of its own; an eye such as

few men have owned, and under whose spell man or woman might easily

melt to acquiescence with the owner's mind.

He sat his horse with a certain haughtiness as well as carelessness.

His chin seemed long and firm, and his lofty forehead--indeed, his

whole air and carriage--discovered him the man of ambition that he

really was. For this was no other than Aaron Burr, Vice-President of

the United States, whose name was soon to be on the lips of all. He

had lately come to Washington with the Jefferson administration.

This gentleman now reined up his horse as he caught sight of the young

man approaching. His older companion also halted. Burr raised his hat.

"Ah, Captain Lewis!" he said in a voice of extraordinary sweetness,

yet of power. "You also have caught the secret of this climate, eh?

You ride in the early morning--I do not wonder. You are Virginian, and

so know the heats of Washington. I fancy you recognize Mr. Merry," he

added, his glance turning from one to the other.

The young Virginian bowed to both gentlemen.

"I have persuaded his excellency the minister from Great Britain to

ride with us on one of our Washington mornings. He has been good

enough to say--to say--that he enjoys it!"

Burr turned a quick glance upon the heavier figure at his side, with a

half smile of badinage on his own face. Lewis bowed again, formally,

and Anthony Merry answered with equal politeness and ceremony.

"Yes," said the envoy, "to be sure I recall the young man. I met him

in the anteroom at the President's house."

Meriwether Lewis cast him a quick glance, but made no answer. He knew

well enough the slighting estimate in which everything at Washington

was held by this minister accredited to our government. Also he knew,

as he might have said, something about the diplomat's visit at the

Executive Mansion. For thus far the minister from Great Britain to

Washington had not been able to see the President of the United

States.

"And you are done your ride?" said Burr quickly, for his was a keen

nose to scent any complication. "Tell me"--he lifted his own reins now

to proceed--"you saw nothing of my daughter, Mrs. Alston? We missed

her at the house, and have feared her abduction by some bold young

Virginian, eh?"

His keen eye rested fairly on the face of the younger man as he spoke.

The latter felt the challenge under the half mocking words.

"Yes," he replied calmly, "I have seen Mrs. Alston. I left her but now

at the old mill, having a cup of coffee with the miller's wife. I had

not time myself for a second, although Mrs. Alston honored me by

allowing me to sit at her table for a moment. We met by accident, you

see, as we both rode, a short time ago. I overtook her when it was not

yet sunrise, or scarcely more."

"You see!" laughed Burr, as he turned to Merry. "Our young men are

early risers when it comes to pursuit of the fair. I must ride at once

and see to the welfare of my daughter. She may be weeping at losing

her escort so soon!"

They all smiled in proper fashion. Lewis bowed, and, lifting his hat,

passed on. Burr, as they parted, fell for just a half-moment into

thought, his face suddenly inscrutable, as if he pondered something.

"There is the ablest man I have seen in Washington," blurted out Merry

suddenly, apropos of nothing that had been said. "He has manners, and

he rides like an Englishman."

"Say not so!" said Burr, laughing. "Better--he rides like a

Virginian!"

"Very well; it is the same thing. The Virginians are but

ourselves--this country is all English yet. And I swear--Mr. Burr, may

we speak freely?--I cannot see, and I never shall see, what is the

sense in all this talk of a new democracy of the people. Now, what men

like these--like you----"

"You know well enough how far I agree with you," said Burr somberly.

"'Tis an experiment, our republic, I am willing to say that boldly to

you, at least. How long it may last----"

"Depends on men like you," said Merry, suddenly turning upon him as

they rode. "How long do you suppose his Majesty will endure such

slights as they put on us here day by day? My blood boils at the

indignities we have had to suffer here--cooling our heels in your

President's halls. I call it mere presumptuousness. I cannot look upon

this country as anything but a province to be taken back again when

England is ready. And it may be, since so much turbulence and

discourtesy seem growing here, that chance will not wait long in the

coming!"

"It may be, Mr. Merry," said Aaron Burr. "My own thoughts you know too

well for need of repetition. Let us only go softly. My plans advance

as well as I could ask. I was just wondering," he added, "whether

those two young people really were together there at the old mill--and

whether they were there for the first time."

"If not, 'twas not for the last time!" rejoined the older man. "Yonder

young man was made to fill a woman's eye. Your daughter, Mr. Burr,

while the soul of married discreetness, and charming as any of her sex

I have ever seen, must look out for her heart. She might find it

divided into three equal parts."

"How then, Mr. Minister?"

"One for her father----"

Aaron Burr bowed.

"Yes, her father first, as I verily believe. What then?"

"The second for her husband----"

"Certainly. Mr. Alston is a rising man. He has a thousand slaves on

his plantations--he is one of the richest of the rich South

Carolinian planters. And in politics he has a chance--more than a

chance. But after that?"

"The third portion of so charming a woman's heart might perhaps be

assigned to Captain Meriwether Lewis!"

"Say you so?" laughed Burr carelessly. "Well, well this must be looked

into. Come, I must tell my son-in-law that his home is in danger of

being invaded! Far off in his Southern rice-lands, I fear he misses

his young wife sometimes. I brought her here for the sake of her own

health--she cannot thrive in such swamps. Besides, I cannot bear to

have her live away from me. She is happier with me than anywhere else.

Yes, you are right, my daughter worships me."

"Why should she not? And why should she not ride with a gallant at

sunrise for an early cup of coffee, egad?" said the older man.

Burr did not answer, and they rode on.

In the opposite direction there rode also the young man of whom they

spoke. And at about the time that the two came to the old mill and

saw Theodosia Alston sitting there--her face still cast down, her

eyes gazing abstractedly into her untasted cup on the little

table--Meriwether Lewis was pulling up at the iron gate which then

closed the opening in the stone wall encircling the modest official

residence of his chief and patron, President Jefferson.

CHAPTER IV

PRESIDENT AND SECRETARY

There stood waiting near the gate one of Mr. Jefferson's private

servants, Samson, who took the young man's rein, grinning with his

usual familiar words of welcome as the secretary dismounted from his

horse.

"You-all suttinly did warm old Arcturum a li'l bit dis mawnin', Mistah

Mehywethah!"

Samson patted the neck of the spirited animal, which tossed its head

and turned an eye to its late rider.

"Yes, and see that you rub him well. Mind you, if Mr. Jefferson finds

that his whitest handkerchief shows a sweat-mark from the horse's hide

he will cut off both your black ears for you, Samson--and very likely

your head along with them. You know your master!" The secretary smiled

kindly at the old black man.

"Yassah, yassah," grinned Samson, who no more feared Mr. Jefferson

than he did the young gentleman with whom he now spoke. "I just

lookin' at you comin' down that path right now, and I say to myself,

'Dar come a ridah!' I sho' did, Mistah Mehywethah!"

The young man answered the negro's compliment with one of his rare

smiles, then turned, with just a flick of his gloves on his breeches

legs, and marched up the walk to the door of the mansion.

At the step he turned and paused, as he usually did, to take one look

out over the unfinished wing of stone still in process of erection. On

beyond, in the ragged village, he saw a few good mansion houses, many

structures devoted to business, many jumbled huts of negroes, and here

and there a public building in its early stages.

The great system of boulevards and parks and circles of the new

American capital was not yet apparent from the place where Mr. Thomas

Jefferson's young secretary now stood. But the young man perhaps saw

city and nation alike advanced in his vision; for he gazed long and

lingeringly before he turned back at last and entered the door which

the old house servant swung open for him.

His hat and crop and gloves he handed to this bowed old darky,

Ben--another of Mr. Jefferson's plantation servants whom he had

brought to Washington with him. Then--for such was the simple fashion

of the ménage, where Meriwether Lewis himself was one of the

President's family--he stepped to the door beyond and knocked lightly,

entering as he did so.

The hour was early--he himself had not breakfasted, beyond his coffee

at the mill--but, early as it was, he knew he would find at his desk

the gentleman who now turned to him.

"Good morning, Mr. Jefferson," said Meriwether Lewis, in the greeting

which he always used.

"Good morning, my son," said the other man, gently, in his invariable

address to his secretary. "And how did Arcturus perform for you this

morning?"

"Grandly, sir. He is a fine animal. I have never ridden a better."

"I envy you. I wish I could find the time I once had for my horses."

He turned a whimsical glance at the piled desk before him. "If our new

multigraph could write a dozen letters all at once--and on as many

different themes, my son--we might perhaps get through. I vow, if I

had the money, I would have a dozen secretaries--if I could find

them!"

The President rose now and stood, a tall and striking figure of a man,

over six feet in height, of clean-cut features, dark hazel eye, and

sandy, almost auburn, hair. His long, thin legs were clad in

close-fitting knee breeches of green velveteen, somewhat stained. His

high-collared coat, rolling above the loosely-tied stock which girded

his neck, was dingy brown in color, and lay in loose folds. He was one

of the worst-clad men in Washington at that hour. His waistcoat, of

red, was soiled and far from new, and his woolen stockings were

covered with no better footwear than carpet slippers, badly down at

the heel.

Yet Thomas Jefferson, even clad thus, seemed the great man that he

was. Stooped though his shoulders were, his frame was so strong, his

eye so clear and keen, though contemplative, that he did not look his

years.

Here was a man, all said who knew him, of whose large soul so many

large deeds were demanded that he had no time for little and

inconsequent things--indeed, scarce knew that they existed. To think,

to feel, to create, to achieve--these were his absorbing tasks; and so

exigent were the demands on his great intellectual resources that he

seemed never to know the existence of a personal world.

He stood careless, slipshod, at the side of a desk cluttered with a

mass of maps, papers, letters in packets or spread open. There were

writing implements here, scientific instruments of all sorts, long

sheets of specifications, canceled drafts, pages of accounts--all the

manifold impedimenta of a man in the full swing of business life. It

might have been the desk of any mediocre man; yet on that desk lay the

future of a people and the history of a world.

He stood, just a trifle stooped, smiling quizzically at the young man,

yet half lovingly; for to no other being in the world did he ever give

the confidence that he accorded Meriwether Lewis.

"I do not see how I could be President without you, Merne, my son,"

said he, employing the familiar term that Meriwether Lewis had not

elsewhere heard used, except by his mother. "Look what we must do

today!"

The young secretary turned his own grave eye upon the cluttered desk;

but it was not dread of the redoubtable tasks awaiting him that gave

his face all the gravity it bore.

"Mr. Jefferson--" he began, but paused, for he could see now standing

before him his friend, the man whom, of all in the world, he loved,

and the man who believed in him and loved him.

"Yes, my son?"

"Your burden is grievous hard, and yet----"

"Yes, my son?"

But Meriwether Lewis could not speak further. He stood now, his jaws

set hard, looking out of the window.

The older man came and gently laid a hand upon his shoulder.

"Come, come, my son," said he, his own voice low and of a kindness it

could assume at times. "You must not--you must not yield to this, I

say. Shake off this melancholy which so obsesses you. I know whence it

comes--your father gave it you, and you are not to blame; but you have

more than your father's strength to aid you. And you have me, your

friend, who can understand."

Lewis only turned on him an eye so full of anguish as caused the older

man to knit his brow in deep concern.

"What is it, Merne?" he demanded. "Tell me. Ah, you cannot tell? I

know! 'Tis the old melancholy, and something more, Merne, my boy. Tell

me--ah, yes, it is a woman!"

The young man did not speak.

"I have often told all my young friends," said Mr. Jefferson slowly,

after a time, "that they should marry not later than twenty-three--it

is wrong to cheat the years of life--and you approach thirty now, my

son. Why linger? Listen to me. No young man may work at his best and

have a woman's face in his desk to haunt him. That will not do. We all

have handicap enough without that."

But still Meriwether could only look into the face of his superior.

"I know very well, my son," the President continued. "I know it all.

Put her out of your heart, my boy. Would you shame yourself--and

her--and me?"

"No! Never would I do that, Mr. Jefferson, believe me. But now I must

beg of you--please, sir, let me go soon--let it be at once!"

The older man stood looking at him for a time in silence, as he went

on hurriedly:

"I must say good-by to you, best and noblest of men. Indeed, I have

said good-by to--everything."

"As you say, your case is hopeless?"

"Yes, sir."

"Ah, well, we have both been planning for our Western expedition these

ten years, my son; so why should we fret if matters conspire to bring

it about a trifle earlier than we planned?"

"I asked you when I was a boy to send me, but you could not then."

"No, but instead I sent yonder maundering Michaux. He, Ledyard, and

all the others failed me. They never saw the great vision. There it

lies, unknown, tremendous--no man knows what--that new country. I have

had to hide from the people of this republic this secret purpose which

you and I have had of exploring the vast Western country. I have

picked you as the one man fitted for that work. I do not make

mistakes. You are a born woodsman and traveler--you are ready to my

hand as the instrument for this magnificent adventure. I cannot well

spare you now--but yes, you must go!"

They stood there, two men who made our great adventure for

us--vision-seers, vision-owned, gazing each into the other's eyes.

"Send me now, Mr. Jefferson!" repeated Meriwether Lewis. "Send me now.

I will mend to usefulness again. I will work for you all my life, if

need be--and I want my name clear with you."

The old man laid a kindly hand upon his shoulder.

"I must yield you to your destiny," said he. "It will be a great one."

He turned aside, a hand to his lip as he paced uncertainly. "But I

still am wondering what our friends are doing yonder in France," said

he. "That is the question. Livingston, Monroe, and the others--what

are they doing with Napoleon Bonaparte? The news from France--but

stay," he added. "Wait! I had forgotten. Come, we shall see about it!"

With the sudden enthusiasm of a boy he caught his young aide by the

arm. They passed down the hall, out by the rear entrance and across

the White House grounds to the brick stables which then stood at the

rear.

Mr. Jefferson paid no attention to the sleek animals there which

looked in greeting toward him. Instead, he passed in front of the

series of stalls, and without excuse or explanation hurriedly began to

climb the steep ladder which led to the floor above.

They stood at length in the upper apartment of the stable buildings.

It was not a mow or feed loft, but rather a bird loft, devoted to the

use of many pigeons. All about the eaves were arranged many

boxes--nesting places, apparently, although none of the birds entered

the long room, which seemed free of any occupancy.

Mr. Jefferson stood for a moment, eagerly scanning the rear of the

tier of boxes. An exclamation broke from him. He hurried forward with

a sudden gesture to a little flag which stood up, like the tilt of a

fisherman on the ice, at the side of the box to which he pointed.

"Done!" said he.

He reached up to the box that he had indicated, pressed down a little

catch, opened the back and looked in. Again an exclamation escaped

him.

He put in a hand gingerly, and, tenderly imprisoning the bird which he

found therein, drew it forth, his long fingers eagerly lifting its

wings, examining its legs.

It could easily be seen that the box was arranged with a door on a

tripping-latch, so that the pigeon, on entering, would imprison

itself. It was apparent that Mr. Jefferson was depending upon the

natural homing instinct of his carrier pigeons to bring him some

message.

"I told them," said he, "to loose a half-dozen birds at once. See!

See!"

He unrolled from one leg of the prisoner a little cylinder of paper

covered with tinfoil and tied firmly in its place. It was the first

wireless message ever received at Washington. None since that time has

carried a greater burden. It announced a transaction in empires.

Mr. Jefferson read, and spread out the paper that his aide might read:

General Bonaparte signed May 2--Fifteen millions--Rejoice!

In no wider phrasing than that came the news of the great Louisiana

Purchase, by virtue of which this republic--whether by chance, by

result of greed warring with greed, or through the providence of

Almighty God, who shall say?--gained the great part of that vast and

incalculably valuable realm which now reaches from the Mississippi to

the Pacific Ocean. What wealth that great empire held no man had

dreamed, nor can any dream today; for, a century later, its story is

but beginning.

Century on century, that story still will be in the making. A home for

millions of the earth's best, a hope for millions of the earth's less

fortunate--granary of the peoples, mint of the nations, birthplace and

growing-ground of the new race of men--who could have measured that

land then--who could measure it today?

And its title passed, announced in seven words, carried by a bird

wandering in the air, but bound unerringly to the ark of God's

covenant with man--the covenant of hope and progress.

Thomas Jefferson stretched out his right hand to meet that of

Meriwether Lewis. Their clasp was strong and firm. The eye of each man

blazed.

"Mr. Jefferson," said Meriwether Lewis, "this is your monument!"

"And yours," was the reply. "Come, then!"

He turned to the stairs, the pigeon still fondled in his arm. That

bird--a white one, with slate-blue tips to its wings--never needed to

labor again, for Mr. Jefferson kept it during its life, and long after

its death.

"Come now," he said, as he began to descend the ladder once more. "The

bird was loosed yesterday, late in the afternoon. It has done its

sixty or seventy-five miles an hour for us, counting out time lost in

the night. The ship which brought this news docked at New York

yesterday. The post stages carrying it hither cannot arrive before

tomorrow. This is news--the greatest of news that we could have.

Yesterday--this morning--we were a young and weak republic. Tomorrow

we shall be one of the powers of the world. Go, now--you have been

held in leash long enough, and the time to start has come. Tomorrow

you will go westward, to that new country which now is ours!"

Neither said anything further until once again they were in the

President's little office-room; but Thomas Jefferson's eye now was

afire.

"I count this the most important enterprise in which this country ever

was engaged," he exclaimed, his hands clenched. "Yonder lies the

greater America--you lead an army which will make far wider conquest

than all our troops won in the Revolutionary War. The stake is larger

than any man may dream. I see it--you see it--in time others also will

see. Tell me, my son, tell me once more! Come what may, no matter what

power shall move you, you will be faithful in this great trust? If I

have your promise, then I shall rest assured."

Thomas Jefferson, more agitated than any man had ever seen him,

dropped half trembling into his chair, his shaggy red mane about his

forehead, his long fingers shaking.

"I give you my promise, Mr. Jefferson," said Meriwether Lewis.

CHAPTER V

THE PELL-MELL AND SOME CONSEQUENCES

It was late in the afternoon when the secretary to the President

looked up from the crowded desk. "Mr. Jefferson," ventured he, "you

will pardon me----"

"Yes, my son?"

"It grows late. You know that today the British minister, Mr. Merry,

comes to meet the President for the first time formally--at dinner.

Señor Yrujo also--and their ladies, of course. Mr. Burr and Mr. Merry

seem already acquainted. I met them riding this morning."

"Hand and glove, then, so soon? What do you make of it? I have a guess

that those three--Burr, Merry, Yrujo--mean this administration no

special good. And yet it was I myself who kept our Spanish friend from

getting his passports back to Madrid. I did that only because of his

marriage to the daughter of my friend, Governor McKean, of

Pennsylvania. But what were you saying now?"

"I thought perhaps I should go to my rooms to change for dinner. You

see that I am still in riding-clothes."

"And what of that, my son? I am in something worse!"

The young man stood and looked at his chief for a moment. He realized

the scarce dignified figure that the President presented in his long

coat, his soiled waistcoat, his stained trousers, and his woolen

stockings--not to mention the unspeakable slippers, down at the heel,

into which he had thrust his feet that morning when he came into the

office.

"You think I will not do?" Mr. Jefferson smiled at him frankly. "I am

not so free from wisdom, perhaps, after all. Let this British minister

see us as we are, for men and women, and not dummies for finery.

Moreover, I remember well enough how we cooled our heels there in

London, Mr. Madison and myself. They showed us little courtesy enough.

Well, they shall have no complaint here. We will treat them as well as

we do the others, as well as the electors who sent us here!"

Meriwether Lewis allowed himself a smile.

"Go," added his chief. "Garb yourself as I would have you--in your

best. But there will be no precedence at table this evening--remember

that! Let them take seats pell-mell--the devil take the hindmost--a

fair field for every one, and favor to none! Seat them as nearly as

possible as they should not be seated--and leave the rest to me. All

these--indeed, all history and all the records--shall take me

precisely as I am!"

An hour later Meriwether Lewis stood before his narrow mirror, well

and handsomely clad, as was seeming with one of his family and his

place--a tall and superb figure of young manhood, as proper a man as

ever stood in buckled shoes in any country of the world.

The guests came presently, folk of many sorts. With Mr. Jefferson as

President, the democracy of America had invaded Washington, taking

more and more liberties, and it had many representatives on hand. With

these came persons of rank of this and other lands, dignitaries,

diplomats, officials, ministers of foreign powers. Carriages with

outriders came trundling over the partially paved roads of the crude

capital city. Footmen opened doors to gentlemen and ladies in full

dress, wearing insignia of honor, displaying gems, orders,

decorations, jewels, all the brilliant costumes of the European

courts.

They came up the path to the door of the mansion where, to their

amazement, they were met only by Mr. Jefferson's bowing old darky Ben,

who ushered them in, helped them with their wraps and asked them to

make themselves at home. And only old Henry, Mr. Jefferson's butler,

bowed them in as they passed from the simple entrance hall into the

anteroom which lay between the hall and the large dining-saloon.

The numbers increased rapidly. What at first was a general gathering

became a crowd, then a mob. There was no assigned place for any, no

presentation of one stranger to another. Friends could not find

friends. Mutterings arose; crowding and jostling was not absent; here

and there an angry word might have been heard. The policy of

pell-mell was not working itself out in any happy social fashion.

Matters were at their worst when suddenly from his own apartments

appeared the tall and well-composed figure of Mr. Jefferson's young

secretary, social captain of matters at the Executive Mansion, and

personal aide to the President. His quick glance caught sight of the

gathering line of carriages; a second glance estimated the plight of

those now jammed into the anteroom like so many cattle and evidently

in distress.

In a distant corner of the room, crowded into some sort of refuge back

of a huge davenport, stood a small group of persons in full official

dress--a group evidently ill at ease and no longer in good humor.

Meriwether Lewis made his way thither rapidly as he might.

"It is Mr. Minister Merry," said he, "and Mme. Merry." He bowed

deeply. "Señor and Señora Yrujo, I bring you the respects of Mr.

Jefferson. He will be with us presently."

"I had believed, sir--I understood," began Merry explosively, "that we

were to meet here the President of the United States. Where, then, is

his suite?"

"We have no suite, sir. I represent the President as his aide."

"My word!" murmured the mystified dignitary, turning to his lady, who

stood, the picture of mute anger, at his side, the very aigrets on her

ginger-colored hair trembling in her anger.

[Illustration: "'Mistah Thomas Jeffahson!' was his sole announcement"]

They turned once more to the Spanish minister, who, with his American

wife, stood at hand. There ensued such shrugs and liftings of eyebrows

as left full evidence of a discontent that none of the four attempted

to suppress.

Meriwether Lewis saw and noted, but seemed not to note. Mr. Merry

suddenly remembered him now as the young man he had encountered that

morning, and turned with an attempt at greater civility.

"You will understand, sir, that I came supposing I was to appear in my

official capacity. We were invited upon that basis. There was to have

been a dinner, was there not--or am I mistaken of the hour? Is it not

four in the afternoon?"

"You were quite right, Mr. Minister," said Meriwether Lewis. "You

shall, of course, be presented to the President so soon as it shall

please his convenience to join us. He has been occupied in many

duties, and begs you will excuse him."

The dignity and courtesy of the young man were not without effect.

Silence, at least, was his reward from the perturbed and indignant

group of diplomats penned behind the davenport.

Matters stood thus when, at a time when scarce another soul could have

been crowded into the anteroom, old Henry flung open the folding doors

which he had closed.

"Mistah Thomas Jeffahson!" was his sole announcement.

There appeared in the doorway the tall, slightly stooped figure of the

President of the United States, one of the greatest men of his own or

of any day. He stood, gravely unconscious of himself, tranquilly

looking out upon his gathered guests. He was still clad in the garb

which he had worn throughout the day--the same in which he had climbed

to the pigeon loft--the same in which he had labored during all these

long hours.

His coat was still brown and wrinkled, hanging loosely on his long

frame. His trousers were the stained velveteens of the morning; his

waistcoat the same faded red; his hose the slack woolen pair that he

had worn throughout the day. And upon his feet--horror of horrors!--he

wore still his slippers, the same old carpet slippers, down at the

heel, which had afforded him ease as he sat at his desk.

As Thomas Jefferson stood, he overtopped the men about him head and

shoulders in physical stature, as he did in every other measure of a

man.

Innocent or unconscious of his own appearance, his eye seeking for

knowledge of his guests, he caught sight of the group behind the

davenport. Rapidly making his way thither, he greeted each, offering

his hand to be shaken, bowing deeply to the ladies; and so quickly

passed on, leaving them almost as much mystified as before. Only

Yrujo, the Spanish Minister, looked after him with any trace of

recognition, for at this moment Meriwether Lewis was away, among other

guests.

An instant later the curtained folding doors which separated the

anteroom from the dining-saloon were thrown open. Mr. Jefferson

passed in and took his place at the head of the table, casting not

a single look toward any who were to join him there. There was no

announcement; there was no _pas_, no precedence, no reserved place

for any man, no announcement for any lady or gentleman, no servant

to escort any to a place at table!

It had been worse, far worse, this extraordinary scene, had it not

been for the swiftness and tact of the young man to whom so much was

entrusted. Meriwether Lewis hastened here and there, weeding out those

who could not convince him that they were invited to dine. He

separated as best he might the socially elect from those not yet

socially arrived, until at length he stood, almost the sole barrier

against those who still crowded forward.

Here he was met once more by the party from behind the davenport.

"Tell me," demanded Mr. Merry, who--seeing that no other escort

offered for her--had given his angry lady his own arm, "tell me, sir,

where is the President? To whom shall I present the greetings of his

British Majesty?"

"Yonder is the President of the United States, sir," said Meriwether

Lewis. "He with whom you shook hands is the President. He stands at

the head of his table, and you are welcome if you like. He asks you to

enter."

Merry turned to his wife, and from her to the wife of the Spanish

minister.

"Impossible!" said he. "I do not understand--it cannot be! That

man--that extraordinary man in breeches and slippers yonder--it cannot

be he asks us to sit at table with him! He _cannot_ be the President

of the United States!"

"None the less he is, Mr. Merry!" the secretary assured him.

"Good Heavens!" said the minister from Great Britain, as he passed on,

half dazed.

By this time there remained but few seats, none at all toward the head

of the table or about its middle portion. Toward the end of the room,

farthest from the official host, a few chairs still stood vacant,

because they had not been sought for. Thither, with faltering

footsteps, ere even these opportunities should pass, stepped the

minister from Great Britain and the minister from Spain, their ladies

with them--none offering escort.

Well disposed to smile at his chief's audacious overturning of all

social usage, yet not unadvised of the seriousness of all this,

Meriwether Lewis handed the distinguished guests to their seats as

best he might; and then left them as best he might.

At that time there were not six vacant places remaining at the long

table. No one seemed to know how many had been invited to the banquet,

or how many were expected--no one in the company seemed to know anyone

else. It was indeed a pell-mell affair.

For once the American democracy was triumphant. But the leader of that

democracy, the head of the new administration, the host at this

official banquet, the President of the United States, Thomas

Jefferson, stood quietly, serenely, looking out over the long table,

entirely unconcerned with what he saw. If there was trouble, it was

for others, not for him.

Those at table presently began to seat themselves, following the

host's example. It was at this moment that the young captain of

affairs turned once more toward the great doors, with the intention of

closing them. Old Henry was having his own battles with the remaining

audience in the anteroom, as he now brought forward two belated

guests. Old Henry, be sure, knew them both; and--as a look at the

sudden change of his features might have told--so did Mr. Jefferson's

aide.

They advanced with dignity, these two--one a gentleman, not tall, but

elegant, exquisitely clad in full-dress costume; a man whom you would

have turned to examine a second time had you met him anywhere. Upon

his arm was a young woman, also beautifully costumed, smiling,

graceful, entirely at her ease. Many present knew the two--Aaron Burr,

Vice-President of the United States; his daughter, Theodosia Burr

Alston.

Mr. Burr passed within the great doors, turned and bowed deeply to his

host, distant as he was across the crowded room. His daughter

curtsied, also deeply. Their entry was dramatic. Then they stood, a

somewhat stately picture, waiting for an instant while seemingly

deciding their future course.

It was at this moment that Meriwether Lewis approached them,

beckoning. He led them toward the few seats that still remained

unoccupied, placed them near to the official visitors, whose ruffled

feathers still remained unsmoothed, and then stood by them for an

instant, intending to take his departure.

There was one remaining chair. It was at the side of Theodosia Alston.

She herself looked up at him eagerly, and patted it with her hand. He

seated himself at her side.

Thus at last was filled the pell-mell table of Mr. Thomas Jefferson.

To this day no man knows whether all present had been invited, or

whether all invited had opportunity to be present.

There were those--his enemies, men of the opposing political party,

for the most part--who spoke ill of Mr. Jefferson, and charged that he

showed hypocrisy in his pretense of democratic simplicity in official

life. Yet others, even among his friends, criticised him severely for

the affair of this afternoon--July 4, in the year of 1803. They said

that his manners were inconsistent with the dignity of the highest

official of this republic.

If any of this comment injured or offended Mr. Jefferson, he never

gave a sign. He was born a gentleman as much as any, and was as fully

acquainted with good social usage as any man of his day. His life had

been spent in the best surroundings of his own country, and at the

most polished courts of the Old World. To accuse him of ignorance or

boorishness would have been absurd.

The fact was that his own resourceful brain had formed a definite

plan. He wished to convey a certain rebuke--and with deadly accuracy

he did convey that rebuke. It was at no enduring cost to his own fame.

If the pell-mell dinner was at first a thing inchoate, awkward,

impossible, criticism halted when the actual service at table began.

The chef at the White House had been brought to this country by Mr.

Jefferson from Paris, and no better was known on this side the water.

So devoted was Mr. Jefferson known to be to the French style of

cooking that no less a man than Patrick Henry, on the stump, had

accused him of having "deserted the victuals of his country." His

table was set and served with as much elegance as any at any foreign

court. At the door of the city of Washington, even in the summer

season, there was the best market of the world. As submitted by his

_chef de cuisine_, Mr. Jefferson's menu was of no pell-mell sort. If

we may credit it as handed down, it ran thus, in the old French of

that day:

Huîtres de Shinnecock, Saulce Tempête

Olives du Luc

Othon Mariné à l'Huile Vierge

Amandes et Cerneaux Salés

Pot au Feu du Roy "Henriot"

Croustade Mogador

Truite de Ruisselet, Belle Meunière

Pommes en Fines Herbes

Fricot de tendre Poulet en Coquemare, au Vieux Chanturgne

Tourte de Ris de Veau, Financière

Baron de Pré Salé aux Primeurs

Sorbet des Comtes de Champagne

Dinde Sauvage flambée devant les Sarments de Vigne,

flanquée d'Ortolans

Aspic de Foie Gras Lucullus

Salade des Nymphes à la Lamballe

Asperges Chauldes enduites de Sauce

Lombardienne

Dessert et Fruits de la Réunion

Fromage de Bique

Café Arabe

Larmes de Juliette

Whatever the wines served at the Executive Mansion may have been at

later dates, those owned and used by President Jefferson were the best

the world produced--vintages of rarity, selected as could have been

done only by one of the nicest taste. Rumor had it that none other

than Señor Yrujo, minister from Spain, recipient of many casks of the

best vintages of his country that he might entertain with proper

dignity, had seen fit to do a bit of merchandizing on his own account,

to the end that Mr. Jefferson became the owner of certain of these

rare casks.

In any event, the Spanish minister now showed no fear of the wines

which came his way. Nor, for that matter, did the minister from Great

Britain, nor the spouses of these twain. Mr. Burr, seated with their

party, himself somewhat abstemious, none the less could not refrain

from an interrogatory glance as he saw Merry halt a certain bottle or

two at his own plate.

"Upon my word!" said the sturdy Briton, turning to him. "Such wine I

never have tasted! I did not expect it here--served by a host in

breeches and slippers! But never mind--it is wonderful!"

"There may be many things here you have not expected, your

excellency," said Mr. Burr.

The Vice-President favored the little party at his left with one of

his brilliant smiles. He had that strange faculty, admitted even by

his enemies, of making another speak freely what he wished to hear,

himself reticent the while.

The face of the English dignitary clouded again.

"I wish I could approve all else as I do the wine and the food; but I

cannot understand. Here we sit, after being crowded like herrings in a

box--myself, my lady here, and these others. Is this the placing his

Majesty's minister should have at the President's table? Is this what

we should demand here?"

"The indignity is to all of us alike," smiled Burr. "Mr. Jefferson

believes in a great human democracy. I myself regret to state that I

cannot quite go with him to the lengths he fancies."

"I shall report the entire matter to his Majesty's government!" said

Mr. Merry, again helping himself to wine. "To be received here by a

man in his stable clothes--so to meet us when we come formally to pay

our call to this government--that is an insult! I fancy it to be a

direct and intentional one."

"Insult is small word for it," broke in the irate Spanish minister,

still further down the table. "I certainly shall report to my own

government what has happened here--of that be very sure!"

"Give me leave, sir," continued Merry. "This republic, what is it?

What has it done?"

"I ask as much," affirmed Yrujo. "A small war with your own country,

Great Britain, sir--in which only your generosity held you back--that

is all this country can claim. In the South, my people own the mouth

of the great river--we own Florida--we own the province of Texas--all

the Southern and Western lands. True, Louis XV--to save it from Great

Britain, perhaps, sir"--he bowed to the British minister--"originally

ceded Louisiana to our crown. True, also, my sovereign has ceded it

again to France. But Spain still rules the South, just as Britain

rules the middle country out beyond; and what is left? I snap my

fingers at this republic!"

Señor Yrujo helped himself to a brimming glass of his own wine.

"I say that Western country is ours," he still insisted, warming to

his oration now. "Suppose, under coercion, our sovereign did cede it

to Napoleon, who claims it now? Does Spain not govern it still? Do we

not collect the revenues? Is not the whole system of law enforced

under the flag of Spain, all along the great river yonder? Possession,

exploration, discovery--those are the rights under which territories

are annexed. France has the title to that West, but we hold the land

itself--we administer it. And never shall it go from under our flag,

unless it be through the act of stronger foreign powers. Spain will

fight!"

"Will Spain fight?" demanded a deep and melodious voice. It was that

of Aaron Burr who spoke now, half in query, half in challenge. "Would

Spain fight--and would Great Britain, if need were and the time came?"

He spoke to men heated with wine, smarting under social indignity, men

owning a hurt personal vanity.

"Our past is proof enough," said Merry proudly.

Yrujo needed no more than a shrug.

"Divide and conquer?" Burr went on, looking at them, and raising an

eyebrow in query.

They nodded, both of them. Burr looked around. His daughter and

Meriwether Lewis were oblivious. He saw the young man's eyes, somber,

deep, fixed on hers; saw her gazing in return, silent, troubled,

fascinated.

One presumes that it was at this moment--at the instant when Aaron

Burr, seeing the power his daughter held over young Meriwether Lewis,

and the interest he held for her, turned to these foreign officials at

his left--at that moment, let us say, the Burr conspiracy began.

"Divide that unknown country, the West, and how long would this

republic endure?" said Aaron Burr.

The noise of the banquet now rose about them. Voices blended with

laughter; the wine was passing; awkwardness and restraint had given

way to good cheer. In a manner they were safe to talk.

"What?" demanded Aaron Burr once more. "Could a few francs transfer

all that marvelous country from Spain to France? That were absurd. By

what possible title could that region yonder ever come to this

republic? It is still more absurd to think that. Civilization does not

leap across great river valleys. It follows them. You have said

rightly, Señor Yrujo. To my mind Great Britain has laid fair grasp

upon the upper West; and Spain holds the lower West, with which our

statesmen have interested themselves of late. By all the rights of

conquest, discovery, and use, gentlemen, Great Britain's traders have

gained for her flag all the territory which they have reached on

their Western trading routes. I go with you that far."

Merry turned upon Burr suddenly a deep and estimating eye.

"I begin to see," said he, "that you are open to conviction, Mr.

Burr."

"Not open to conviction," said Aaron Burr, "but already convinced!"

"What do you mean, Colonel Burr?" The Englishman bent toward him,

frowning in intentness.

"I mean that perhaps I have something to say to you two gentlemen of

the foreign courts which will be of interest and importance to you."

"Where, then, could we meet after this is over?"

The minister from Great Britain surely was not beyond close and ready

estimate of events.

"At my residence, after this dinner," rejoined Aaron Burr instantly.

His eye did not waver as it looked into the other's, but blazed with

all the fire of his own soul. "Across the Alleghanies, along the great

river, there is a land waiting, ready for strong men. Are we such men,

gentlemen? And can we talk freely as such among ourselves?"

Their conversation, carried on in ordinary tones, had not been marked

by any. Their brows, drawn sharp in sudden resolution, their glance

each to the other, made their ratification of this extraordinary

speech.

They had no time for anything further at the moment. A sound came to

their ears, and they turned toward the head of the long table, where

the tall figure of the President of the United States was rising in

his place. The dinner had drawn toward its close.

Mr. Jefferson now stood, gravely regarding those before him, his keen

eye losing no detail of the strange scene. He knew the place of every

man and woman at that board--perhaps this was his own revenge for a

reception he once had had at London. But at last he spoke.

"I have news for you all, my friends, today; news which applies not to

one man nor to one woman of this or any country more than to another,

but news which belongs to all the world."

He paused for a moment, and held up in his right hand a tiny scrap of

paper, thin, crumpled. None could guess what significance it had.

"May God in His own power punish me," said he, solemnly, "if ever I

halt or falter in what I believe to be my duty! I place no bounds to

the future of this republic--based, as I firmly believe it to be, upon

the enduring principle of the just and even rights of mankind.

"Our country to the West always has inspired me with the extremest

curiosity, and animated me with the loftiest hopes. Since the year

1683 that great river, the Missouri, emptying into the Mississippi,

has been looked upon as the way to the Pacific Ocean. One hundred

years from that time--that is to say, in 1783--I myself asked one of

the ablest of our Westerners, none other than General George Rogers

Clark, to undertake a journey of exploration up that Western river. It

was not done. Three years later, when accredited to the court at

Paris, I met a Mr. Ledyard, an American then abroad. I desired him to

cross Russia, Siberia and the Pacific Ocean, and then to journey

eastward over the Stony Mountains, to find, if he could, the head of

that Missouri River of which we know so little. But Ledyard failed,

for reasons best known, perhaps, to the monarch of Russia.

"Later than that, and long before I had the power which now is mine to

order matters of the sort, the Boston sailor, Captain Grey, in 1792,

as you know, found the mouth of the Columbia River. The very next year

after that I engaged the scientist Michaux to explore in that

direction; but he likewise failed.

"All my life I have seen what great opportunities would be ours if

once we owned that vast country yonder. As a private citizen I planned

that we should at least explore it--always it was my dream to know

more of it. It being clear to me that the future of our republic lay

not to the east, but to the west of the Alleghanies--indeed, to the

west of the Mississippi itself--never have I relinquished the ambition

that I have so long entertained. Never have I forgotten the dream

which animated me even in my younger years. I am here now to announce

to you, so that you may announce to all the world, certain news which

I have here regarding that Western region, which never was ours, but

which I always wished might be ours."

With the middle finger of his left hand the President flicked at the

mysterious bit of crumpled paper still held aloft in his right. There

was silence all down the long table.

"More than a year ago I once more chose a messenger into that

country," went on Thomas Jefferson. "I chose a leader of exploration,

of discovery. I chose him because I knew I could trust in his loyalty,

in his judgment, in his courage. Well and thoroughly he has fitted

himself for that leadership."

He turned his gaze contemplatively down the long table. The gaze of

many of his guests followed his, still wonderingly, as he went on.

"My leader for this expedition into the West, which I planned more

than a year ago, is here with you now. Captain Meriwether Lewis, will

you stand up for a moment? I wish to present you to these, my

friends."

With wonder, doubt, and, indeed, a certain perturbation at the

President's unexpected summons, the young Virginian rose to his feet

and stood gazing questioningly at his chief.

"I know your modesty as well as your courage, Captain Lewis," smiled

Mr. Jefferson. "You may be seated, sir, since now we all know you.

"Let me say to you others that I have had opportunity of knowing my

captain of this magnificent adventure. In years he is not yet thirty,

but he is and always was a leader, mature, wise, calm, and resolved.

Of courage undaunted, possessing a firmness and perseverance of

purpose which nothing but impossibilities can divert from its

direction; careful as a father of those committed to his charge, and

yet steady in the maintenance of order and discipline; intimate with

the Indian character, customs, and principles; habituated to the

hunting life; guarded by exact observation of the vegetables and

animals of his own country against duplication of objects already

possessed; honest, disinterested, liberal; of sound understanding, and

of a fidelity to truth so scrupulous that whatever he shall report

will be as certain as if seen by ourselves--with all these

qualifications, I say, as if selected and implanted by nature in one

body, for one purpose, I could have no hesitation in confiding this

enterprise--the most cherished enterprise of my administration--to him

whom now you have seen here before you."

The President bowed deeply to the young man, who had modestly resumed

his place. Then, for just a moment, Mr. Jefferson stood silent,

absorbed, rapt, carried away by his own vision.

"And now for my news," he said at length. "Here you have it!"

He waved once more the little scrap of paper.

"I had this news from New York this morning. It was despatched

yesterday evening. Tomorrow it will reach all the world. The mails

will bring it to you; but news like this could not wait for the mails.

No horse could bring it fast enough. It was brought by a dove--the

dove of peace, I trust. Let me explain briefly; what my news concerns.

"As you know, that new country yonder belonged at first to any one who

might find it--to England, if she could penetrate it first; to Spain,

if she were first to put her flag upon it; to Russia, if first she

conquered it from the far Northwest. But none of these three ever

completed acquisition by those means under which nations take title to

the new territories of the world. Louisiana, as we term it, has been

unclaimed, unknown, unowned--indeed, virgin territory so far as

definite title was concerned.

"In the north, such title as might be was conveyed to Great Britain by

France after the latter power was conquered at Quebec. The lower

regions France--supposing that she owned them--conveyed, through her

monarch, the fifteenth Louis, to Spain. Again, in the policy of

nations, Spain sold them to France once more, in a time of need.

France owned the territory then, or had the title, though Spain still

was in possession. It lay still unoccupied, still contested--until but

now.

"My friends, I give you news! On the 2d of May last, Napoleon

Bonaparte, First Consul of France, sold to this republic, the United

States of America, all of Louisiana, whatever it may be, from the

Mississippi to the Pacific! Here are seven words which carry an empire

with them--the empire of humanity--a land in which democracy,

humanity, shall expand and grow forever! This is my news:

"General Bonaparte signed May 2--Fifteen millions--Rejoice!"

A deep sigh rose as if in unison all along the table. The event was

too large for instant grasping. There was no applause at first.

Some--many--did not understand. Not so certain others.

The minister from Great Britain, the minister from Spain, Aaron Burr

and a few other men acquainted with great affairs, prominent in public

life, turned and looked at the President's tall figure at the head of

the table, and then at that of the silent young man whom Mr.

Jefferson had publicly honored.

The face of Aaron Burr grew pale. The faces of the foreign ministers

showed sudden consternation. Theodosia Alston turned, her own eyes

fixed upon the grave face of the young man sitting at her side, who

made no sign of the strong emotion possessing his soul.

"I have given you my news," the voice of Mr. Jefferson went on, rising

now, vibrant and masterful, fearless, compelling. "There you have it,

this little message, large as any ever written in the world. The title

to that Western land has passed to us. We set our seal on it now! Cost

what it may, we shall hold it so long as we can claim a flag or a

country on this continent. The price is nothing. Fifteen millions

means no more than the wine or water left in a half-empty glass. It

might be fifty times fifteen millions, and yet not be one fiftieth

enough. These things are not to be measured by known signs or marks of

values. It is not in human comprehension to know what we have gained.

Hence we have no human right to boast. The hand of Almighty God is in

this affair! It was He who guided the fingers of those who signed this

cession to the United States of America!

"My friends, now I am content. What remains is but detail. Our duty is

plain. Between us and this purpose, I shall hold all intervention of

whatever nature, friendly or hostile, as no more than details to be

ignored. Yonder lies and has always lain the scene of my own ambition.

Always I have hungered to know that vast new land beyond all maps, as

yet ignorant of human metes and bounds. Always I have coveted it for

this republic, knowing that without room for expansion we must fail,

that with it we shall triumph to the edge of our ultimate dream of

human destiny--triumph and flourish while governments shall remain

known among men.

"I offer that faith to the eyes of the world today and of all the days

to come, believing in every humility that God guided the hands of

those who signed this title deed of a great empire, and that God long

ago implanted in my unworthy bosom the strong belief that one day this

might be which now has come to pass. It is no time for boasting, no

time for any man to claim glory or credit for himself. We are in the

face of events so vast that their margins leave our vision. We cannot

see to the end of all this, cannot read all the purpose of it, because

we are but men.

"Gentlemen, you Americans, men of heart, of courage! You also, ladies,

who care most for gentlemen of heart and courage, whose pulses beat

even with our own to the stimulus of our deeds! I say to you all that

I would gladly lay aside my office and its honors--I would lay aside

all my other ambitions, all my desires to be remembered as a man who

at least endeavored to think and to act--if thereby I might lead this

expedition of our volunteers for the discovery of the West. That may

not be. These slackened sinews, these shrinking limbs, these fading

eyes, do not suffice for such a task. It is in my heart, yes; but the

heart for this magnificent adventure needs stronger pulses than my

own.

"My heart--did I say that I had need of another, a better? Did I say

that I had need of eyes and brains, of thews and sinews, of calm

nerves and steady blood? Did I say I had need of courage and

resolution--all these things combined? I have them! That Providence

who has given us all needful instruments and agents to this point in

our career as a republic has given us yet another, and the last one

needful. Tomorrow my friend, my special messenger, Captain Meriwether

Lewis, starts with his expedition. He will explore the country between

the Missouri and the Pacific--the country of my dream and his. It is

no longer the country of any other power--it is our own!

"Gentlemen, I give you a toast--Captain Meriwether Lewis!"

CHAPTER VI

THE GREAT CONSPIRACY

The simplicity dinner was at an end. Released by the President's

withdrawal, the crowd--it could be called little else--broke from the

table. The anteroom filled with struggling guests, excited,

gesticulating, exclaiming.

Meriwether Lewis, anxious only to escape from his social duties that

he might rejoin his chief, felt a soft hand on his arm, and turned.

Theodosia Alston was looking up at him.

"Do you forget your friends so soon? I must add my good wishes. It was

splendid, what Mr. Jefferson said--and it was true!"

"I wish it might be true," said the young man. "I wish I might be

worthy of such a man."

"You are worthy of us all," returned Theodosia.

"People are kind to the condemned," said he sententiously.

At the door they were once more close to the others of the diplomatic

party who had sat in company at table. The usual crush of those

clamoring for their carriages had begun.

"My dear," said Mr. Merry to his irate spouse, "I shall, if Mrs.

Alston will permit, ask you to take her up in your carriage with you

to her home. I am to go with Mr Burr."

The Spanish minister made similar excuse to his own wife. Thus

Theodosia Alston left Meriwether Lewis for the second time that day.

It was a late conference, the one held that night at the home of the

Vice-President of the United States. Burr, cool, calculating, always

in hand, sat and weighed many matters well before he committed himself

beyond repair. His keen mind saw now, and seized the advantage for

which he waited.

"You say right, gentlemen, both of you," he began, leaning forward. "I

would not blame you if you never went to the White House again."

"Should I ever do so again," blazed the Spanish minister, "I will take

my own wife in to dinner on my own arm, and place her at the head of

the table, where she belongs! It was an insult to my sovereign that we

received today."

"As much myself, sir!" said Mr. Merry, his brows contracted, his face

flushed still with anger. "I shall know how to answer the next

invitation which comes from Mr Jefferson.[1] I shall ask him whether

or not there is to be any repetition of this sort of thing."

[Footnote 1: During the following winter Mr. Merry had opportunity to

fulfill his threat. In February, 1804, the President again invited him

to dine, in the following words:

"Thomas Jefferson asks the favor of Mr. Merry to dine with a small

party of friends on Monday, the 13th, at half past three."

Mr. Merry, still smarting all these months, stood on his dignity and

addressed his reply to the Secretary of State.

Reviewing at some length what seemed to him important events, he

added:

"If Mr. Merry should be mistaken as to the meaning of Mr. Jefferson's

note, and it should prove that the invitation is designed for him in a

public capacity, he trusts that Mr. Jefferson will feel equally that

it must be out of his power to accept it, without receiving

previously, through the channel of the Secretary of State, the

necessary formal assurance of the President's determination to observe

toward him those niceties of distinction which have heretofore been

shown by the executive government of the United States to the persons

who have been accredited as our Majesty's ministers.

"Mr. Merry has the honor to request of Mr. Madison to lay this

explanation before the President, and to accompany it with the

strongest assurance of his highest respect and consideration."

The Secretary of State, who seems to have been acting as social

secretary to Mr. Jefferson, without hesitation replied as follows:

"Mr. Madison presents his compliments to Mr. Merry. He has

communicated to the President Mr. Merry's note of this morning, and

has the honor to remark to him that the President's invitation, being

in the style used by him in like cases, had no reference to the points

of form which will deprive him of the pleasure of Mr. Merry's company

at dinner on Monday next.

"Mr. Madison tenders to Mr. Merry his distinguished consideration."

The friction arising out of this and interlocking incidents was part

of the unfortunate train of events which later led up to the war of

1812.]

"So much for the rule of the plain people!" said Burr, as he laid the

tips of his fingers together contemplatively.

"Yet, Colonel Burr, you are Vice-President under this administration!"

broke out Merry.

"One must use agencies and opportunities as they offer. My dear sir,

perhaps you do not fully know me. I took this election only in order

to be close to the seat of affairs. I am no such rabid adherent to

democracy as some may think. You would be startled if I told you that

I regard this republic as no more than an experiment. This is a large

continent. Take all that Western country--Louisiana--it ought not to

be called attached to the United States. At this very moment it is

half in rebellion against its constituted authorities. More than once

it has been ready to take arms, to march against New Orleans, and to

set up a new country of its own. It is geography which fights for

monarchy, against democracy, on this continent--in spite of what all

these people say."

"Sir," said the British minister, "you have been a student of

affairs."

"And why not? I claim intelligence, good education, association with

men of thought. My reason tells me that conquest is in the blood of

those men who settled in the Mississippi Valley. They went into

Kentucky and Tennessee for the sake of conquest. They are restless,

unattached, dissatisfied--ready for any great move. No move can be

made which will seem too great or too daring for them. Now let me

confess somewhat to you--for I know that you will respect my

confidence, if you go no further with me than you have gone tonight. I

have bought large acreages of land in the lower Louisiana country,

ostensibly for colonization purposes. I do purpose colonization

there--_but not under the flag of this republic!_"

Silence greeted his remark. The others sat for a moment, merely

gazing at him, half stunned, remembering only that he was Jefferson's

colleague, Vice-President of the United States.

"You cannot force geography," resumed Burr, in tones as even as if he

had but spoken of bartering for a house and lot. "Lower Louisiana and

Mexico together--yes, perhaps. Florida, with us--yes, perhaps. Indeed,

territories larger perhaps than any of us dare dream at present, once

our new flag is raised. All that I purpose is to do what has been

discussed a thousand times before--to unite in a natural alliance of

self-interest those men who are sundered in every way of interest and

alliance from the government on this side of the Alleghanies. Would

you call that treason--conspiracy? I dislike the words. I call it

rather a plan based upon sound reason and common sense; and I hold

that its success is virtually assured."

"You will explain more fully, Colonel Burr?" Mr. Merry was intent now

on all that he heard.

"I march only with destiny, yonder--do you not see, gentlemen?" Burr

resumed. "Those who march with me are in alliance with natural events.

This republic is split now, at this very moment. It must follow its

own fate. If the flag of Spain were west of it on the south, and the

flag of Britain west of it on the north, why, then we should have the

natural end of the republic's expansion. With those great powers in

alliance at its back, with the fleets of England on the seas, at the

mouth of the great river--owning the lands in Canada on the north--it

would be a simple thing, I say, to crush this republic against the

wall of the Appalachians, or to drive it once more into the sea."

They were silent alike before the enormousness and the enormity of

this. Reading their thoughts, Burr raised his hand in deprecation.

"I know what is in your minds, gentlemen. The one thing which troubles

you is this--the man who speaks to you is Vice-President of the United

States. I say what in your country would be treason. In this country I

maintain it is not yet treason, because thus far we are in an

experiment. We have no actual reign of reason and of law; and he

marches to success who marches with natural laws and along the

definite trend of existing circumstances and conditions."

"What you say, Mr. Burr," began Merry gravely, "assuredly has the

merit of audacity. And I see that you have given it thought."

"I interest you, gentlemen! You can go with me only if it be to your

interest and to that of your countries to join with me in these plans.

They have gone far forward--let me tell you that. I know my men from

St. Louis to New Orleans--I know my leaders--I know that population.

If this be treason, as Mr. Patrick Henry said, let us make the most of

it. At least it is the intention of Aaron Burr. I stake upon it all my

fortune, my life, the happiness of my family. Do you think I am

sincere?"

Merry sat engaged in thought. He could see vast movements in the game

of nations thus suddenly shown before him on the diplomatic board. And

on his part it is to be said that he was there to represent the

interests of his own government alone.

In the same even tones, Burr resumed his astonishing statements.

"My son-in-law, Mr. Alston, of South Carolina--a very wealthy planter

of that State--is in full accord with all my plans. My own resources

have been pledged to their utmost, and he has been so good as to add

largely from his own. I admit to you that I sought alliance with him

deliberately when he asked my daughter's hand. He is an ambitious man,

and perhaps he saw his way to the fulfillment of certain personal

ambitions. He has contributed fifty thousand dollars to my cause. He

will have a place of honor and profit in the new government which will

be formed yonder in the Mississippi Valley."

"So, then," began Yrujo, "the financing is somewhat forward! But fifty

thousand is only a drop."

"We may as well be plain," rejoined Burr. "Time is short--you know

that it is short. We all heard what Mr. Jefferson said--we know that

if we are to take action it must be at once. That expedition must not

succeed! If that wedge be driven through to the Pacific--and who can

say what that young Virginian may do?--your two countries will be

forever separated on this continent by one which will wage successful

war on both. Swift action is my only hope--and yours."

"Your funds," said Mr. Merry, "seem to me inadequate for the demands

which will be made upon them. You said fifty thousand?"

Burr nodded.

"I pledge you as much more--on one condition that I shall name."

Burr turned from Mr. Merry to Señor Yrujo. The latter nodded.

"I undertake to contribute the same amount," said the envoy of Spain,

"but with no condition attached."

The color deepened in the cheek of the great conspirator. His eye

glittered a trifle more brilliantly.

"You named a certain condition, sir," he said to Merry.

"Yes, one entirely obvious."

"What is it, then, your excellency?" Burr inquired.

"You yourself have made it plain. The infernal ingenuity of yonder

Corsican--curse his devilish brain!--has rolled a greater stone in our

yard than could be placed there by any other human agency. We could

not believe that Napoleon Bonaparte would part with Louisiana thus

easily. No doubt he feared the British fleet at the mouth of the

river--no doubt Spain was glad enough that our guns were not at New

Orleans ere this. But, I say, he rolled that stone in our yard. If

title to this Louisiana purchase is driven through to the Pacific--as

Mr. Jefferson plans so boldly--the end is written now, Colonel Burr,

to all your enterprises! Britain will be forced to content herself

with what she can take on the north, and Spain eventually will hold

nothing worth having on the south. By the Lord, General Bonaparte

fights well--he knows how to sacrifice a pawn in order to checkmate a

king!"

"Yes, your excellency," said Burr, "I agree with you, but----"

"And now my condition. Follow me closely. I say if that wedge is

driven home--if that expedition of Mr. Jefferson's shall succeed--its

success will rest on one factor. In short, there is a man at the head

of that expedition who must fight with us and not against us, else my

own interest in this matter lacks entirely. You know the man I have in

mind."

Burr nodded, his lips compressed.

"That young man, Colonel Burr, will go through! I know his kind.

Believe me, if I know men, he is a strong man. Let that man come back

from his expedition with the map of a million square miles of new

American territory hanging at his belt, like a scalp torn from his

foes--and there will be no chance left for Colonel Burr and his

friends!"

"All that your excellency has said tallies entirely with our own

beliefs," rejoined Burr. "But what then? What is the condition?"

"Simply this--we must have Captain Lewis with us and not against us. I

want that man! I must have him. That expedition must never proceed. It

must be delayed, stopped. Money was raised twenty years ago in London

to make this same sort of journey across the continent, but the plan

fell through. Revive it now, and we English still may pull it off. But

it will be too late if Captain Lewis goes forward now--too late for

us--too late for you and your plan, Mr. Burr. I want that man! We must

have him with us!"

Burr sat in silence for a time.

"You open up a singular train of thought for me, your excellency,"

said he at length. "He does belong with us, that young Virginian!"

"You know him, then?" inquired the British minister. "That is to say,

you know him well?"

"Perfectly. Why should I not? He nearly was my son-in-law. Egad! Give

him two weeks more, and he might have been--he got the news of my

daughter's marriage just too late. It hit him hard. In truth, I doubt

if he ever has recovered from it. They say he still takes it hard.

Now, you ask me how to get that man, your excellency. There is perhaps

one way in which it could be accomplished, and only one."

"How, then?" inquired Merry.

"The way of a woman with a man may always be the answer in matters of

that sort!" said Aaron Burr.

The three sat and looked each at the other for some time without

comment.

"I find Colonel Burr's brain active in all ways!" began Señor Yrujo

dryly. "Now I confess that he goes somewhat in advance of mine."

"Listen," said Aaron Burr. "What Mr. Jefferson said of Captain Lewis

is absolutely true--his will has never been known to relax or weaken.

Once resolved, he cannot change--I will not say he does not, but that

he cannot."

"Then even the unusual weapon you suggest might not avail!" Mr.

Merry's smile was not altogether pleasant.

"Women would listen to him readily, I think," remarked Yrujo.

"Gallant in his way, yes," said Burr.

"Then what do you mean by saying something about the way of a woman

with a man?"

"Only that it is the last remaining opportunity for us," rejoined

Aaron Burr. "The appeal to his senses--of course, we will set that

aside. The appeal to his chivalry--that is better! The appeal to his

ambition--that is less, but might be used. The appeal to his

sympathy--the wish to be generous with the woman who has not been

generous with him, for the reason that she could not be--here again

you have another argument which we may claim as possible."

"You reason well," said Merry. "But while men are mortal, yonder, if I

mistake not, is a gentleman."

"Precisely," said Burr. "If we ask him to resign his expedition we are

asking him to alter all his loyalty to his chief--and he will not do

that. Any appeal made to him must be to his honor or to his chivalry;

otherwise it were worse than hopeless. He would no more be disloyal to

my son-in-law, the lady's husband--in case it came to that--than he

would be disloyal to the orders of his chief."

"Fie! Fie!" said Yrujo, serving himself with wine from a decanter on

the table. "All men are mortal. I agree with your first proposition,

Colonel Burr, that the safest argument with a man--with a young man

especially, and such a young man--is a woman--and such a woman!"

"One thing is sure," rejoined Burr, flushing. "That man will succeed

unless some woman induces him to change--some woman, acting under an

appeal to his chivalry or his sense of justice. His reasons must be

honest to him. They must be honest to her alike."

Burr added this last virtuously, and Mr. Merry bowed deeply in return.

"This is not only honorable of you, Colonel Burr, but logical."

"That means some sort of sacrifice for him," suggested Yrujo

presently. "But some one is sacrificed in every great undertaking. We

cannot count the loss of men when nations seek to extend their

boundaries and enhance their power. Only the question is, at what

sacrifice, through what appeal to his chivalry, can his assistance be

carried to us?"

"We have left out of our accounting one factor," said Burr after a

time.

"What, then?"

"One factor, I repeat, we have overlooked," said Burr. "That is the

wit of a woman! I am purposing to send as our agent with him no other

than my daughter, Mrs. Alston. There is no mind more brilliant, no

heart more loyal, than hers--nor any soul more filled with ambition!

She believes in her father absolutely--will use every resource of her

own to upbuild her father's ambitions.[2] Now, women have their own

ways of accomplishing results. Suppose we leave it to my daughter to

fashion her own campaign? There is nothing wrong in the relations of

these two, but at table today I saw his look to her, and hers to him

in reply. We are speaking in deep and sacred confidence here,

gentlemen. So I say to you, ask no questions of me, and let me ask

none of her. Let me only say to her: 'My daughter, your father's

success, his life, his fortune--the life and fortune and success of

your husband as well--depend upon one event, depend upon you and your

ability to stop yonder expedition of Captain Meriwether Lewis into the

Missouri country!'"

[Footnote 2: It is generally conceded that Theodosia Burr Alston must

have been acquainted with her father's most intimate ambitions, and

with at least part of the questionable plans by which he purposed to

further them. Her blind and unswerving loyalty to him, passing all

ordinary filial affection, was a predominant trait of her singular and

by no means weak or hesitant character, in which masculine resolution

blended so strangely with womanly reserve and sweetness.]

"When could we learn?" demanded the British minister.

"I cannot say how long a time it may take," Burr replied. "I promise

you that my daughter shall have a personal interview with Captain

Lewis before he starts for the West."

"But he starts at dawn!" smiled Minister Merry.

"Were it an hour earlier than that, I would promise it. But now,

gentlemen, let us come to the main point. If we succeed, what then?"

The British minister was businesslike and definite.

"Fifty thousand dollars at once, out of a special fund in my control.

Meantime I would write at once to my government and lay the matter

before them.[3] We shall need a fleet at the south of the Mississippi

River. That will cost money--it will require at least half a million

dollars to assure any sort of success in plans so large as yours, Mr.

Burr. But on the contingency that she stops him, I promise you that

amount. Fifty thousand down--a half-million more when needed."

[Footnote 3: Mr. Merry did so and reported the entire proposal made by

Burr. The proposition was that the latter should "lend his assistance

to his majesty's government in any manner in which they may think fit

to employ him, particularly in endeavoring to effect a separation of

the Western part of the United States from that which lies between the

mountains in its whole extent."

But though deeply interested in the conspiracy to separate the Western

country, Mr. Merry was not too confiding, for in his message to Mr.

Pitt he added the following confidence, showing his own estimate of

Burr:

"I have only to add that if strict confidence could be placed in him,

he certainly possesses, perhaps in a much greater degree than any

other individual in this country, all the talents, energy,

intrepidity, and firmness which it requires for such an enterprise."]

The dark eye of Aaron Burr flashed.

"Then," said he firmly, "success will meet our efforts--I guarantee

it! I pledge all my personal fortune, my friends, my family, to the

last member."

"I am for my country," said Mr. Merry simply. "It is plain to see that

Napoleon sought to humble us by ceding that great region to this

republic. He meant to build up in the New World another enemy to Great

Britain. But if we can thwart him--if at the very start we can divide

the forces which might later be allied against us--perhaps we may

conquer a wider sphere of possession for ourselves on this rich

continent. There is no better colonizing ground in all the world!"

"You understand my plan," said Aaron Burr. "Reduced to the least

common denominator, Meriwether Lewis and my daughter Theodosia have

our fate in their hands."

The others rose. The hour was past midnight. The secret conference had

been a long one.

"He starts tomorrow--is that sure?" asked Merry.

"As the clock," rejoined Burr. "She must see him before the breakfast

hour."

"My compliments, Colonel Burr. Good night!"

"Good night, sir," added Yrujo. "It has been a strange day."

"Secrecy, gentlemen, secrecy! I hope soon to have more news for you,

and good news, too. _Au revoir!_"

Burr himself accompanied them to the door.

CHAPTER VII

COLONEL BURR AND HIS DAUGHTER

One instant Aaron Burr sat, his head dropped, revolving his plans. The

next, he pulled the bell-cord and paced the floor until he had answer.

"Go at once to Mrs. Alston's rooms, Charles," said he to the servant.

"Tell her to rise and come to me at once. Tell her not to wait. Do you

hear?"

He still paced the floor until he heard a light _frou-frou_ in the

hall, a light knock at the door. His daughter entered, her eyes still

full of sleep, her attire no more than a loose peignoir caught up and

thrown above her night garments.

"What is it, father--are you ill?"

"Far from it, my child," said he, turning with head erect. "I am

alive, well, and happier than I have been for months--years. I need

you--come, sit here and listen to me."

He caught her to him with a swift, paternal embrace--he loved no

mortal being as he did his daughter--then pushed her tenderly into the

deep seat near by the lamp, while he continued pacing up and down the

room, voluble and persuasive, full of his great idea.

The matters which he had but now discussed with the two foreign

officials he placed before his daughter. He told her all--except the

truth. And Aaron Burr knew how to gild falsehood itself until it

seemed the truth.

"Now you have it, my dear," said he. "You see, my ambition to found a

country of my own, where a man may have a real ambition. This dirty

village here is too narrow a field for talents like yours or mine. Let

me tell you, Napoleon has played a great jest with Mr. Jefferson.

There is nothing in the Constitution of the United States--I am lawyer

enough to know that--which will make it possible for Congress to

ratify the purchase of Louisiana. We cannot carve new States from that

country--it is already settled by the subjects of another government.

Hence the expedition of Mr. Lewis must fail--it must surely fall of

its own weight. It is based upon an absurdity. Not even Mr. Jefferson

can fly in the face of the supreme laws of the land.

"But as to the Mississippi Valley, matters are entirely different.

There is no law against that country's organizing for a better

government. There is every natural reason for that. As these States on

the East confederated in the cause against oppression, so can those

yonder. There will be more opportunity for strong men there when that

game is on the board--men like Captain Lewis, for instance. Should one

ally one's self with a foredoomed failure? Not at all. I prefer rather

success--station, rank, power, money, for myself, if you please. With

us--a million dollars for the founding of our new country. With

him--for the undertaking of yonder impracticable and chimerical

expedition, twenty-five hundred dollars! Which enterprise, think you,

will win?

"But, on the other hand, if that expedition of Mr. Jefferson's should

succeed by virtue of accident, or of good leadership, all my plans

must fail--that is plain. It comes, therefore, to this, Theo, and I

may tell you plainly--Captain Lewis must be seen--he must be

stopped--we must hold a conference with him. It would be useless for

me to undertake to arrange all that. There is only one person who can

save your father's future--and that one, my daughter, is--you!"

He caught Theodosia's look of surprise, her start, the swift flush on

her cheek--and laughed lightly.

"Let me explain. Aaron Burr and all his family--all his friends--will

reach swift advancement in yonder new government. Power, place--these

are the things that strong men covet. That is what the game of

politics means for strong men--that is why we fight so bitterly for

office. I plan for myself some greater office than second fiddle in

this tawdry republic along the Atlantic. I want the first place, and

in a greater field! I will take my friends with me. I want men who can

lead other men. I want men like Captain Lewis."

"It seems that you value him more now than once you did."

"Yes, that is true, Theo, that is true. I did not favor his suit for

your hand at that time. Although he had a modest fortune in Virginia

lands, he could not offer you the future assured by Mr. Alston. I was

rejoiced--I admit it frankly--when I learned that young Captain Lewis

came just too late, for I feared you would have preferred him. And yet

I saw his quality then--Mr. Jefferson sees it--he is a good chooser of

men. But Captain Lewis must not advance beyond the Ohio. That is a

large task for a woman."

"What woman, father?"

A flush came to her pale cheek. Her father turned to her directly, his

own piercing gaze aflame.

"There is but one woman on earth could do that, my daughter! That

young man's fate was settled when he looked on that woman--when he

looked on you!"

She swiftly turned her head aside, not answering.

"Am I so engaged in affairs that I cannot see the obvious, my dear?"

went on the vibrant voice. "Had I no eyes for what went on at my side

this very evening, at Mr. Jefferson's dinner-table? Could I fail to

observe his look to you--and, yes, am I not sensible to what your eyes

said to him in reply?"

"Do you believe that of me--and you my father?"

"I believe nothing dishonorable of you, my dear," said Burr. "Neither

could I ask anything dishonorable. But I know what young blood will

do. Your eyes said no more than that for me. I know you wish him

well--know you wish well for his ambition, his success--am sure you do

not wish to see him doomed to failure. What? Would you see his career

blighted when it should be but begun?"

"There would be prospects for him?"

"All the prospects in the world! I would place him only second to

myself, so highly do I value his talents in an enterprise such as

this. Alston's money, but Lewis's brains and courage! They both love

you--do I not know?"

Troubled, again she turned her gaze aside.

"Listen, my daughter. That young man is wise--he has no such vast

belief in yonder expedition. He is going in desperation, to escape a

memory! Is it not true? Tell me--and believe that I am not blind--is

not Captain Lewis going into the Missouri country in order to forget a

certain woman? And do we not know, my daughter, who that woman is?"

Still her downcast eye gave him no reply.

"Meriwether Lewis yonder among the savages is a failure. Meriwether

Lewis with me is second only to the vice-regent of the lower Louisiana

country. Texas, Florida, much of Mexico, will join with us, that is

sure. We fight with the great nations of the world, not against

them--we fight with the stars in their courses, and not against them.

"Now, you have two pictures, my dear--one of Meriwether Lewis, the

wanderer, a broken and hopeless man, living among the savages, a log

hut his home, a camp fire the only hearth he knows. Picture that

hopeless and broken man--condemned to that by yourself, my dear--and

then picture that other figure whom you can see rescued, restored to

the world, placed by your own hand in a station of dignity and power.

Then, indeed, he might forget--he might forgive. Yonder he will

forsake his manhood--he will relax his ideals, and go down, step by

step, until he shall not think of you again.

"There are two pictures, my daughter. Which do you prefer--what do you

decide to do? Shall you condemn him, or shall you rescue him? Forgive

your father for having spoken thus plainly. I know your heart--I know

your generosity as well as I know your loyalty and ambition. There is

no reason, my dear, why, for the sake of your father, for the sake of

yourself, _and for the sake of that young man yonder_, you should not

go to him immediately and carry my message."

"Could it be possible," she began at length, half musing, "that I, who

made Captain Lewis so unhappy, could aid a man like him to reach a

higher and better place in life? Could I save him from himself--and

from myself?"

"You speak like my own daughter! If that generous wish bore fruit, I

think that in the later years of life, for both of you, the reflection

would prove not unwelcome. I know, as well as I know anything, that no

other woman will ever hold a place in the heart of Meriwether Lewis.

There is a memory there which will shut out all other things on earth.

We deal now in delicate matters, it is true; but I have been frank

with you, because, knowing your loyalty and fairness, knowing your

ambition, even-paced with mine, none the less I know your discretion

and your generosity as well. You see, I have chosen the best messenger

in all the world to advance my own ambition. Indeed, I have chosen

the only one in all the world who might undertake this errand with the

slightest prospect of success."

"What can I do, father?"

"In the morning that young man will start. It is now two by the clock.

We are late. He will start with the rising sun. It is doubtful if he

will see his bed at all tonight."

"You have called me for a strange errand, father," said Theodosia

Alston, at length. "So far as my brain grasps these things, I go with

you in your plans. I could plan no treachery against this country, nor

could you--you are its sworn servant, its high official."

"Treachery? No, it is statesmanship, it is service to mankind!"

"My consent to that, yes. But as to seeing Captain Lewis, there is, as

you know, but one way. I go not as Theodosia Burr, but as Mrs. Alston

of Carolina. I am a woman of honor; he is a man of honor. No argument

on earth would avail with him except such as might be based upon honor

and loyalty. Nor would any argument, even if offered by my father,

avail otherwise with me."

She turned upon him now the full gaze of her dark eyes, serious,

luminous, yet tender, her love for him showing so clearly that he came

to her softly, took her hands, caught her to his bosom, and kissed her

tenderly.

"Theodosia," said he, "aid me! If the fire of my ambition has consumed

me, I have come to you, because I know your love, because I know your

loyalty! I have not slept tonight," he added, passing a hand across

his forehead.

"There will be no more sleep for me tonight," was her reply.

"You will see him in the morning?"

"Yes."

CHAPTER VIII

THE PARTING

There were others in Washington who did not sleep that night. A light

burned until sunrise in the little office-room of Thomas Jefferson.

Spread upon his desk, covering its litter of unfinished business, lay

a large map--a map which today would cause any schoolboy to smile, but

which at that time represented the wisdom of the world regarding the

interior of the great North American continent. It had served to

afford anxious study for two men, these many hours.

"Yonder it lies, Captain Lewis!" said Mr. Jefferson at length. "How

vast, how little known! We know our climate and soil here. It is but

reasonable to suppose that they exist yonder as they do with us, in

some part, at least. If so, yonder are homes for millions now unborn.

Had General Bonaparte known the value of that land, he would have

fought the world rather than alienate such a region."

The President tapped a long forefinger on the map.

"This, then," he went on, "is your country. Find it out--bring back to

me examples of its soil, its products, its vegetable and animal life.

Espy out especially for us any strange animals there may be of which

science has not yet account. I hold it probable that there may be

yonder living examples of the mastodon, whose bones we have found in

Kentucky. You yourself may see those enormous creatures yet alive."

Meriwether Lewis listened in silence. Mr. Jefferson turned to another

branch of his theme.

"I fancy that some time there will be a canal built across the isthmus

that binds this continent to the one below--a canal which shall

connect the two great oceans. But that is far in the future. It is for

you to spy out the way now, across the country itself. Explore

it--discover it--it is our new world.

"A few must think for the many," he went on. "I had to smuggle this

appropriation through Congress--twenty-five hundred dollars--the price

of a poor Virginia farm! I have tampered with the Constitution itself

in order to make this purchase of a country not included in our

original territorial lines. I have taken my own chances--just as you

must take yours now. The finger of God will be your guide and your

protector. Are you ready, Captain Lewis? It is late."

Indeed, the sun was rising over Washington, the mists of morning were

reeking along the banks of the Potomac.

"I can start in half an hour," replied Meriwether Lewis.

"Are your men ready, your supplies gathered together?"

"The rendezvous is at Harper's Ferry, up the river. The wagons with

the supplies are ready there. I will take boat from here myself with

a few of the men. Not later than tomorrow afternoon I promise that we

will be on our way. We burn the bridges behind us, and cross none

until we come to them."

"Spoken like a soldier! It is in your hands. Go then!"

There was one look, one handclasp. The two men parted; nor did they

meet again for years.

Mr. Jefferson did not look from his window to see the departure of his

young friend, nor did the latter again call at the door to say

good-by. Theirs was indeed a warrior-like simplicity.

The sun still was young when Meriwether Lewis at length descended the

steps of the Executive Mansion.

He was clad now for his journey, not in buckskin hunting-garb, but

with regard for the conventions of a country by no means free of

convention. His jacket was of close wool, belted; his boots were high

and suitable for riding. His stock, snowy white--for always Meriwether

Lewis was immaculate--rose high around his throat, in spite of the hot

summer season, and his hands were gloved. He seemed soldier, leader,

officer, and gentleman.

No retinue, however, attended him; no servant was at his side. He went

afoot, and carried with him his most precious luggage--the long rifle

which he never entrusted to any hands save his own. Close wrapped

around the stock, on the crook of his arm, and not yet slung over his

shoulder, was a soiled buckskin pouch, which went always with the

rifle--the "possible sack" of the wilderness hunter of that time. It

contained his bullets, bullet-molds, flints, a bar or two of lead,

some tinder for priming, a set of awls.

Such was the leader of one of the great expeditions of the world.

Meriwether Lewis had few good-bys to say. He had written but one

letter--to his mother--late the previous morning. It was worded thus:

The day after tomorrow I shall set out for the Western

country. I had calculated on the pleasure of visiting you

before I started, but circumstances have rendered it

impossible. My absence will probably be equal to fifteen or

eighteen months.

The nature of this expedition is by no means dangerous. My

route will be altogether through tribes of Indians friendly

to the United States, therefore I consider the chances of

life just as much in my favor as I should conceive them were

I to remain at home. The charge of this expedition is

honorable to myself, as it is important to my country.

For its fatigues I feel myself perfectly prepared, nor do I

doubt my health and strength of constitution to bear me

through it. I go with the most perfect preconviction in my

own mind of returning safe, and hope, therefore that you

will not suffer yourself to indulge in any anxiety for my

safety.

I will write again on my arrival at Pittsburgh. Adieu, and

believe me your affectionate son.

No regrets, no weak reflections for this man with a warrior's weapon

on his arm--where no other burden might lie in all his years. His were

to be the comforts of the trail, the rude associations with common

men, the terrors of the desert and the mountain; his fireside only

that of the camp. Yet he advanced to his future steadily, his head

high, his eye on ahead--a splendid figure of a man.

He did not at first hear the gallop of hoofs on the street behind him

as at last, a mile or more from the White House gate, he turned toward

the river front. He was looking at the dull flood of the Potomac, now

visible below him; but he paused, something appealing to the strange

sixth sense of the hunter, and turned.

A rider, a mounted servant, was beckoning to him. Behind the horseman,

driven at a stiff gait, came a carriage which seemed to have but a

single occupant. Captain Lewis halted, gazed, then hastened forward,

hat in his hand.

"Mrs. Alston!" he exclaimed, as the carriage came up. "Why are you

here? Is there any news?"

"Yes, else I could not have come."

"But why have you come? Tell me!"

He motioned the outrider aside, sprang into the vehicle and told the

driver to draw a little apart from the more public street. Here he

caught up the reins himself, and, ordering the driver to join the

footman at the edge of the roadway they had left, turned to the woman

at his side.

"Pardon me," said he, and his voice was cold; "I thought I had cut all

ties."

"Knit them again for my sake, then, Meriwether Lewis! I have brought

you a summons to return."

"A summons? From whom?"

"My father--Mr. Merry--Señor Yrujo. They were at our home all night.

We could not--they could not--I could not--bear to see you sacrifice

yourself. This expedition can only fail! I implore you not to go upon

it! Do not let your man's pride drive you!"

She was excited, half sobbing.

"It does drive me, indeed," said he simply. "I am under orders--I am

the leader of this expedition of my government. I do not

understand----"

"At this hour--on this errand--only one motive could have brought me!

It is your interest. Oh, it is not for myself--it is for your future."

"Why did you come thus, unattended? There is something you are

concealing. Tell me!"

"Ah, you are harsh--you have no sympathy, no compassion, no gratitude!

But listen, and I will tell you. My father, Mr. Merry, the Spanish

minister, are all men of affairs. They have watched the planning of

this expedition. Why fly in the face of prophecy and of Providence?

That is what my father says. He says that country can never be of

benefit to our Union--that no new States can be made from it. He says

the people will pass down the Mississippi River, but not beyond it;

that it is the natural line of our expansion--that men who are actual

settlers are bound not into the unknown West, but into the well-known

South. He begs of you to follow the course of events, and not to fly

in the face of Providence."

"You speak well! Go on."

"England is with us, and Spain--they back my father's plans."

He turned now and raised a hand.

"Plans? What plans? I must warn you, I am pledged to my own country's

service."

"Is not my father also? He is one of the highest officers in the

government of this country."

"You may tell me more or not, as you like."

"There is little more to tell," said she. "These gentlemen have made

certain plans of which I know little. My father said to me that Thomas

Jefferson himself knows that this purchase from Napoleon cannot be

made under the Constitution of the United States--that, given time for

reflection, Mr. Jefferson himself will admit that the Louisiana

purchase was but a national folly from which this country cannot

benefit. Why not turn, then, to a future which offers certainties? Why

not come with us, and not attempt the impossible? That is what he

said. And he asked me to implore you to pause."

He sat motionless, looking straight ahead, as she went on.

"He only besought me to induce you, if I could, either to abandon

your expedition wholly as soon as you honorably might do so, or to

go on with it only to such point as will prove it unfeasible and

impracticable. Not wishing you to prove traitorous to a trust,

these gentlemen wish you to know that they would value your

association--that they would give you splendid opportunity. With men

such as these, that means a swift future of success for one--for

one--whom I shall always cherish warmly in my heart."

The color was full in her face. He turned toward her suddenly, his eye

clouded.

"It is an extraordinary matter in every way which you bring for me,"

he said slowly; "extraordinary that foreigners, not friends of this

country, should call themselves the friends of an officer sworn to the

service of the republic! I confess I do not understand it. And why

send you?"

"It is difficult for me to tell you. But my father knew the antagonism

between Mr. Jefferson and himself, and knew your friendship for Mr.

Jefferson. He knew also the respect, the pity--oh, what shall I

say?--which I have always felt for you--the regard----"

"Regard! What do you mean?"

"I did not mean regard, but the--the wish to see you succeed, to help

you, if I could, to take your place among men. I told you that but

yesterday."

She was all confusion now. He seemed pitiless.

"I have listened long enough to have my curiosity aroused. I shall

have somewhat to ponder--on the trail to the West."

"Then you mean that you will go on?"

"Yes!"

"You do not understand----"

"No! I understand only that Mr. Jefferson has never abandoned a plan

or a promise or a friend. Shall I, then, who have been his scholar and

his friend?"

"Ah, you two! What manner of men are you that you will not listen to

reason? He is high in power. Will you not also listen to the call of

your own ambition? Why, in that country below, you might hold a

station as proud as that of Mr. Jefferson himself. Will you throw that

away, for the sake of a few dried skins and flowers? You speak of

being devoted to your country. What is devotion--what is your

country? You have no heart--that I know well; but I credited you with

the brain and the ambition of a man!"

He sat motionless under the sting of her reproaches; and as some

reflection came to her upon the savagery of her own words, she laughed

bitterly.

"Think you that I would have come here for any other man?" she

demanded. "Think you that I would ask of you anything to my own

dishonor, or to your dishonor? But now you do not listen. You will not

come back--even for me!"

In answer he simply bent and kissed her hand, stepped from the

carriage, raised his hat. Yet he hesitated for half an instant and

turned back.

"Theodosia," said he, "it is hard for me not to do anything you ask of

me--you do not know how hard; but surely you understand that I am a

soldier and am under orders. I have no option. It seems to me that the

plans of your father and his friends should be placed at once before

Mr. Jefferson. It is strange they sent you, a woman, as their

messenger! You have done all that a woman could. No other woman in the

world could have done as much with me. But--my men are waiting for

me."

This time he did not turn back again.

* * * * *

Colonel Burr's carriage returned more slowly than it had come. It was

a dejected occupant who at last made her way, still at an early hour,

to the door of her father's house.

Burr met her at the door. His keen eye read the answer at once.

"You have failed!" said he.

She raised her dark eyes to his, herself silent, mournful.

"What did he say?" demanded Burr.

"Said he was under orders--said you should go to Mr. Jefferson with

your plan--said Mr. Jefferson alone could stop him. Failed? Yes, I

failed!"

"You failed," said Burr, "because you did not use the right argument

with him. The next time _you must not fail_. You must use better

arguments!"

Theodosia stood motionless for an instant, looking at her father, then

passed back into the house.

"Listen, my daughter," said Burr at length, in his eye a light that

she never had known before. "You _must_ see that man again, and bring

him back into our camp! We need him. Without him I cannot handle

Merry, and without Merry I cannot handle Yrujo. Without them my plan

is doomed. If it fails, your husband has lost fifty thousand dollars

and all the moneys to which he is pledged beyond that. You and I will

be bankrupt--penniless upon the streets, do you hear?--unless you

bring that man back. Granted that all goes well, it means half a

million dollars pledged for my future by Great Britain herself, half

as much pledged by Spain, success and future honor and power for you

and me--and him. He _must_ come back! That expedition must not go

beyond the Mississippi. You ask me what to tell him? Ask him no longer

to return to us and opportunity. _Ask him to come back to Theodosia

Burr and happiness_--do you understand?"

"Sir," said his daughter, "I think--I think I do not understand!"

He seemed not to hear her--or to toss her answer aside.

"You must try again," said he, "and with the right weapons--the old

ones, my dear--the old weapons of a woman!"

CHAPTER IX

MR. THOMAS JEFFERSON

Not in fifty years, said Thomas Jefferson in the last days of his

life, had the sun caught him in bed. On this morning, having said

good-by to the man to whose hands he had entrusted the dearest

enterprise of all his life, he turned back to his desk in the little

office-room, and throughout the long and heated day, following a night

spent wholly without sleep, he remained engaged in his usual labors,

which were the heavier in his secretary's absence.

He was an old man now, but a giant in frame, a giant in mind, a giant

in industry as well. He sat at his desk absorbed, sleepless, with that

steady application which made possible the enormous total of his

life's work. He was writing in a fine, delicate hand--legible to this

day--certain of those thousands of letters and papers which have been

given to us as the record of his career.

In what labor was the President of the United States engaged on this

particularly eventful day? It seems he found more to do with household

matters than with affairs of state. He was making careful accounts of

his French cook, his Irish coachman, his black servants still

remaining at his country house in Virginia.

All his life Thomas Jefferson kept itemized in absolute faithfulness a

list of all his personal expenses--even to the gratuities he expended

in traveling and entertainment. We find, for instance, that "John

Cramer is to go into the service of Mr. Jefferson at twelve dollars a

month and twopence for drink, two suits of clothes and a pair of

boots." It seems that he bought a bootjack for three shillings; and

the cost of countless other household items is as carefully set down.

We may learn from records of this date that in the past year Mr.

Jefferson had expended in charity $1,585.60. He tells us that in the

first three months of his presidency his expenses were $565.84--and he

was wrong ten cents in his addition of the total! In his own hand he

sets down "A View of the Consumption of Butchers' Meat from September

6, 1801, to June 12, 1802." He knew perfectly well, indeed, what all

his household expenses were, also what it cost him to maintain his

stables. He did all this bookkeeping himself, and at the end of each

year was able to tell precisely where his funds had gone.

We may note one such annual statement, that of the year ended five

months previous to the time when Captain Lewis set forth into the

West:

Provisions $4,059.98

Wines 1,296.63

Groceries 1,624.76

Fuel 553.68

Secretary 600.00

Servants 2,014.89

Miscellaneous 433.30

Stable 399.06

Dress 246.05

Charities 1,585.60

Pres. House 226.59

Books 497.41

Household expenses 393.00

Monticello--plantation 2,226.45

" --family 1,028.79

Loans 274.00

Debts 529.61

Asquisitions--lands bought 2,156.86

" --buildings 3,567.92

" --carriages 363.75

" --furniture 664.10

Total $24,682.45

Mr. Jefferson says in rather shamefaced fashion to his diary:

I ought by this statement to have cash in

hand $183.70

But I actually have in hand 293.00

So that the errors of this statement amt

to 109.20

The whole of the nails used for Monticello and smithwork are

omitted, because no account was kept of them. This makes

part of the error, and the article of nails has been

extraordinary this year.

There was a curious accuracy in the analytical tests which Mr.

Jefferson applied to all the ordinary transactions of life. It was not

enough for him to know exactly how many dollars and cents he had

expended; he must know what should be the average result of such

expenditures. In the middle of a life of tremendous and marvelously

varied activities he finds time to leave for us such records as these:

Mr. Remsen tells me that six cord of hickory last a

fireplace well the winter.

Myrtle candles of last year out.

Pd Farren an impudent surcharge for Venetn blinds, 2.66.

Borrowed of Mr. Maddison order on bank for 150d.

Enclosed to D. Rittenhouse, Lieper's note of 238.57d, out of

which he is to pay for equatorial instrument for me.

Hitzeimer says that a horse well fed with grain requires 100

lb. of hay, and without grain 130 lb.

T. N. Randolph has had 9 galls. whisky for his harvest.

My first pipe of Termo is out--begun soon after I came home

to live from Philadelphia.

Agreed with Robt. Chuning to serve me as overseer at

Monticello for £25 and 600 lb. pork. He is to come Dec. 1.

Agreed with ---- Bohlen to give 300 _livres tournois_ for my

bust made by Ceracchi, if he shall agree to take that sum.

My daughter Maria married this day.

March 16--The first shad at this market today.

March 28--The weeping willow shows the green leaf.

April 9--Asparagus come to table.

April 10--Apricots blossom.

April 12--Genl. Thaddeus Kosciusko puts into my hands a

Warrant of the Treasury for 3,684.54d to have bills of

exchange bought for him.

May 8--Tea out, the pound has lasted exactly 7 weeks, used 6

times a week; this is 8-21 or .4 of an oz. a time for a

single person. A pound of tea making 126 cups costs 2d, 126

cups or ounces of coffee--8 lb. cost 1.6.

May 18--On trial it takes 11 dwt. Troy of double refined

maple sugar to a dish of coffee, or 1 lb. avoirdupois to

26.5 dishes, so that at 20 cents per lb. it is 8 mills per

dish. An ounce of coffee at 20 cents per lb. is 12.5 mills,

so that sugar and coffee of a dish is worth 2 cents.

As to the code of official etiquette which we have seen to exist in

Washington, the President himself was responsible for it, for we

have, written out in his own delicate hand, the following explicit

instructions:

The families of foreign ministers, arriving at the seat of

government, receive the first visit from those of the

national ministers, as from all other residents. Members of

the legislature and of the judiciary, independent of their

offices, have a right as strangers to receive the first

visit. No title being admitted here, those of foreigners

give no precedence. Difference of grade among the diplomatic

members gives no precedence.

At public ceremonies the government invites the presence of

foreign ministers and their families. A convenient seat or

station will be provided for them, with any other strangers

invited, and the families of the national ministers, each

taking place as they arrive, and without any precedence.

To maintain the principle of equality, or of pell-mell, and

prevent the growth of precedence out of courtesy, the

members of the executive will practise at their own houses,

and recommend an adherence to the ancient usages of the

country of gentlemen in mass giving precedence to the ladies

in mass, in passing from one apartment where they are

assembled into another.

And so on, through reams and reams of a strange man's life records.

Why should we care to note his curious concern over details? The

answer to that question is this--obviously, Thomas Jefferson's

estimate of a man must also in all likelihood have been curiously

exact. He did not make public to the world his judgment of Colonel

Aaron Burr, at that time Vice-President of the United States; but in

his diary, written in frankness by himself for himself, he put down

the following:

I have never seen Colonel Burr till he became a member of

the Senate. His conduct very soon inspired me with distrust.

I habitually cautioned Mr. Madison against trusting him too

much. I saw that under General W. and Mr. Adams, where a

great military appointment or a diplomatic one was to be

made, he came post to Philadelphia to show himself, and in

fact he was always in the market if they wanted him. He was

indeed told by Dayton in 1800 that he might be Secretary at

War, but this bid was too late. His election as

Vice-President was then foreseen. With these impressions of

Colonel Burr, there never has been any intimacy between us,

and but little association.

A certain plan of this same Colonel Burr's now went forward in such

fashion as involved the loyalty of Meriwether Lewis, the man to whom,

of all others of his acquaintance, Thomas Jefferson gave first place

in trust and confidence and friendship--the young man who but now was

making his unostentatious departure on the great adventure that they

two had planned.

His garb ill cared-for, his hair unkempt, his face a trifle haggard,

working on into the day whose dawn he had seen arise, the tall, gaunt

old man set aside first one minor matter, then another, leaving them

all exactly finished. At last he wrote down, for later forwarding, the

last item of his own knowledge regarding the new country into which he

had sent his young friend.

I have received word from Paris that Mr. Broughton, one of

the companions of Captain Vancouver, went up the Columbia

River one hundred miles in December, 1792. He stopped at a

point he named Vancouver. Here the river Columbia is still a

quarter of a mile wide. From this point Mount Hood is seen

about twenty leagues distant, which is probably a dependency

of the Stony Mountains. Accept my affectionate salutations.

This was the last word Meriwether Lewis received from his chief. As

the latter finished it, he sat looking out of the window toward that

West which meant so much to him.

He did not at first note the interruption of his reverie. Long ago he

had made public his announcement that the time of Thomas Jefferson

belonged to the public, and that he might be seen at any time by any

man. He hesitated now but a moment, therefore, when old Henry, his

faithful black, threw open the door and stated simply that there was

"a lady wantin' to see Mistah Jeffahson."

"Who is she, Henry?" inquired the President of the United States

mildly. "I am somewhat busy today."

"'Tain't no diff'rence, she say--she sho'ly want see Mistah

Jeffahson."

The tired old man smiled and shrugged his shoulders. A moment later

the persistent caller was ushered into the office of the nation's

chief executive. He rose courteously to meet her.

It was Theodosia Alston, whom he had known from her childhood. Mr.

Jefferson greeted her with his hand outstretched, and, her arm still

in his, led her to a seat.

"My dear," said he, "you will pardon our confusion here, I am sure.

There are many matters----"

"I know it is an intrusion, Mr. Jefferson," began Theodosia Alston

again, her face flushing swiftly. "But you are so good, so kind, so

great in your patience that we all take advantage of you. And yet you

are so tired," she added impulsively, as she caught sight of his

haggard face.

"I was not so fortunate as to find time for sleep last night." He

smiled again with humorous, half twisted mouth.

"Nor was I."

"Tut, tut! No, no, my dear, that sort of thing will not do." He looked

at her in silence for some time. "Perhaps, my dear," said he at last,

"you come regarding Captain Lewis?"

"How did you know?" she exclaimed, startled.

"Why should I not know?" He pushed his chair so close that he might

lay a hand upon her arm. "Listen, Theo, my child. I am an old man, and

I am your friend, and his also. I had need to be very blind had I not

known long ago what I did know. I am, perhaps, the only confidant of

Captain Lewis, and I repose in him confidences that I would venture to

no other man; but he is not the sort to speak of such matters. It is

only by virtue of exceptional circumstances, my dear, that I know the

story of you two."

She was looking straight into his face, her eyes mournful.

"I was glad to send him away, sorely as I miss him. But then, you

said, you come to me about him?"

"Yes, after he is gone--knowing all that you say--because I trust your

great kindness and your chivalry. I come to ask you to call him back!

Oh, Mr. Jefferson, were it any other man in the world but yourself I

had not dared come here; but you know my story and his. It is your

right to believe that he and I were--that is to say, we might have

been--ah, sir, how can I speak?"

"You need not speak, my dear, I know."

"I shall be faithful to my husband, Mr. Jefferson."

The old man nodded.

"Captain Lewis knows that also. He would be the last to wish it

otherwise. But, since it was his misfortune to set his regard upon one

so fair as yourself, and since fate goes so hard for a strong man like

him, then I must admit it needed strong medicine for his case. I sent

him away, yes. Would you ask him back--for any cause?"

In turn she laid a small hand upon the President's arm.

"Only for himself--for that reason alone, Mr. Jefferson, and not to

change your plans--for himself, because you love him. Oh, sir, even

the greatest courts sometimes arrest their judgment if there is new

evidence to be introduced. At the last moment justice gives a

condemned man one more chance."

"What is it, Theodosia?" he said quietly. "I do not grasp all this."

"Able men say that this government cannot take advantage of the sale

of Louisiana to us by Napoleon--that our Constitution prevents our

taking over a foreign territory already populated to make into new

States of our own----"

"Good, my learned counsel--say on!"

"Forgive my weak wit--I only try to say this as I heard it, well and

plainly."

"As well as any man, my dear! Go on."

"Therefore, even if Captain Lewis does go forward, he can only fail at

the last. This is what is said by the Federalists, by your enemies."

"And perhaps by certain of my own party not Federalists--by Colonel

Aaron Burr, for instance!" Thomas Jefferson smiled grimly.

"Yes!" She spoke firmly and with courage.

"I cannot pause to inquire what my enemies say, my dear lady. But in

what way could this effect our friend, Captain Lewis? He is under

orders, on my errand."

"I saw him this very morning--I took my reputation in my hands--I

followed him--I urged him, I implored him to stop!"

"Yes? And did he?"

"Not for an instant. Ah, I see you smile! I might have known he would

not. He said that nothing but word from you could induce him to

hesitate for a moment."

"My dear young lady, I said to Captain Lewis that no report from any

source would cause me for an instant to doubt his loyalty to me. If

anything could shake him in his loyalty, it would be his regard for

you yourself; but since I trust his honor and your own, I do not fear

that such a conflict can ever occur!"

She did not reply. After a time the President went on gently:

"My dear, would you wish him to come back--would you condemn him

further to the tortures of the damned? And would you halt him while he

is trying to do his duty as a man and a soldier? What benefit to you?"

She drew up proudly.

"What benefit, indeed, to me? Do you think I would ask this for

myself? No, it was for _him_--it was for _his_ welfare only that I

dared to come to you. And you will not hear new evidence?"

But now she was speaking to Thomas Jefferson, the President of the

United States, man of affairs as well, man of firm will and clear-cut

decision.

"Madam," said he, coldly, "in this office we do a thing but once. Had

I condemned yonder young man to his death--and perhaps I have--I would

not now reconsider that decision. I would not speak so long as this

over it, did I not know and love you both--yes, and grieve over you

both; but what is written is written."

His giant hand fell lightly, but with firmness, on the desk at his

side. The inexorableness of a great will was present in the room as an

actual thing. Tears swam in her eyes.

"You would not hear what was the actual cause of my wish for him----"

"No, my dear! We have made our plans."

"There are other plans afoot these days, Mr. Jefferson."

"Tut, tut! Are you my enemy, too? Oh, yes, I know there are enemies

enough in wait for me and my administration on every side. Yes, I know

a plan--I know of many such. But one thing also I do know, madam, and

it is this--not all the enemies on this earth can alter me one iota in

this undertaking on which I have sent Captain Lewis. As against that

magnificent adventure there is nothing can be offered as an offset,

nothing that can halt it for an instant. No reward to him or me--nay,

no reward to any other human being--shall stop his advancement in that

purpose which he shares with me. If he fails, I fail with him--and all

my life as well!"

She rose now, calm before the imperious quality of his nature, so

unlike his former gentleness.

"You refuse, then, Mr. Jefferson? You will not reopen this case?"

"I refuse nothing to you gladly, my dear lady. But you have seen

him--you have tested him. Did he turn back? Shall I, his friend and

his chief, halt him at such a time? Now that were the worst kindness

to him in the world. And I am convinced that you and I both plan only

kindness for him."

Suddenly he saw the tears in her eyes. At once he was back again, the

courteous gentleman.

"Do not weep, Theodosia, my child," said he. "Let me kiss you, as your

father or your grandfather would--one who holds you tenderly in his

heart. Forgive me that I pass sentence on you both, but you must

part--you must not ask him back. There now, my dear, do not weep, or

you will make me weep. Let me kiss you for him--and let us all go on

about our duties in the world. My dear, good-by! You must go."

CHAPTER X

THE THRESHOLD OF THE WEST

Meriwether Lewis, having put behind him one set of duties, now

addressed himself to another, and did so with care and thoroughness. A

few of his men, a part of his outfitting, he found already assembled

at Harper's Ferry, up the Potomac. Before sunset of the first day the

little band knew they had a leader.

There was not a knife or a tomahawk of the entire equipment which he

himself did not examine--not a rifle which he himself did not

personally test. He went over the boxes and bales which had been

gathered here, and saw to their arrangement in the transport-wagons.

He did all this without bluster or officiousness, but with the quiet

care and thoroughness of the natural leader of men.

In two days they were on their way across the Alleghanies. A few days

more of steady travel sufficed to bring them to Pittsburgh, the head

of navigation on the Ohio River, and at that time the American capital

in the upper valley of the West. At Pittsburgh Captain Lewis was to

build his boats, to complete the details of his equipment, to take on

additional men for his party--now to be officially styled the

Volunteers for the Discovery of the West. He lost no time in urging

forward the necessary work.

The young adventurer found this inland town half maritime in its look.

Its shores were lined with commerce suited to a seaport. Schooners of

considerable tonnage lay at the wharfs, others were building in the

busy shipyards. The destination of these craft obviously was down the

Mississippi, to the sea. Here were vessels bound for the West Indies,

bound for Philadelphia, for New York, for Boston--carrying the

products of this distant and little-known interior.

As he looked at this commerce of the great West, pondered its

limitations, saw its trend with the down-slant of the perpetual

roadway to the sea, there came to the young officer's mind with

greater force certain arguments that had been advanced to him.

He saw that here was the heart of America, realized how natural was

the insistence of all these hardy Western men upon the free use of the

Mississippi and its tributaries. He easily could agree with Aaron Burr

that, had the fleet of Napoleon ever sailed from Haiti--had Napoleon

ever done otherwise than to cede Louisiana to us--then these boats

from the Ohio and the Mississippi would at this very moment, perhaps,

be carrying armed men down to take New Orleans, as so often they had

threatened.

There came, however, to his mind not the slightest thought of

alteration in his own plans. With him it was no question of what might

have been, but of what actually was. The cession by Napoleon had been

made, and Louisiana was ours. It was time to plot for expeditions,

not down the great river, but across it, beyond it, into that great

and unknown country that lay toward the farther sea.

The keen zest of this vast enterprise came to him as a stimulus--the

feel of the new country was as the breath of his nostrils. His bosom

swelled with joy as he looked out toward that West which had so long

allured him--that West of which he was to be the discoverer. The

carousing riffraff of the wharfs, the flotsam and jetsam of the river

trade, were to him but passing phenomena. He shouldered his way among

them indifferently. He walked with a larger vision before his eyes.

Now, too, he had news--good news, fortunate news, joyous news--none

less than the long-delayed answer of his friend, Captain William

Clark, to his proposal that he should associate himself with the

Volunteers for the Discovery of the West. Misspelled, scrawled, done

in the hieroglyphics which marked that remarkable gentleman, William

Clark's letter carried joy to the heart of Meriwether Lewis. It

cemented one of the most astonishing partnerships ever known among

men, one of the most beautiful friendships of which history leaves

note. Let us give the strange epistle in Clark's own spelling:

DEAR MERNE:

Yours to hand touching uppon the Expedishon into the

Missourie Country, & I send this by special bote up the

river to mete you at Pts'brgh, at the Foarks. You convey a

moast welcome and appreciated invitation to join you in an

Enterprise conjenial to my Every thought and Desire. It will

in all likelyhood require at least a year to make the

journey out and Return, but although that means certain

Sacrifises of a personal sort, I hold such far less than the

pleasure to enlist with you, wh. indeed I hold to be my duty

allso.

I need not say how content I am to be associated with the

man moast of all my acquaintance apt to achieve Success in

an undertaking of so difficult and perlous nature. As you

know, it is in the wilderness men are moast sevearly tried,

and there we know a man. I have seen you so tried, and I

Know what you are. I am proud that you apeare to hold me and

my own qualities in like confident trust and belief, and I

shall hope to merit no alteration in your Judgment.

There is no other man I would go with on such an

undertaking, nor consider it seriously, although the concern

of my family largely has been with things military and

adventurous, and we are not new to life among Savidges. Too

well I know the dangers of bad leadership in such affairs,

yes and my brother, the General, also, as the story of

Detroit and the upper Ohio country could prove. All of that

country should have been ours from the first, and only lack

of courage lost it so long to us.

You are so kind as to offer me a place equal in command with

you--I accept not because of the Rank, which is no moving

consideration, eather for you or for me--but because I see

in the jenerosity of the man proposing such a division of

his own Honors, the best assurance of success.

You will find me at or near the Falls of the Ohio awaiting

the arrival of your party, which I taik it will be in early

August or the Midel of that month.

Pray convey to Mr. Jefferson my humble and obedient

respects, and thanks for this honor wh. I shall endeavor to

merit as best lies within my powers.

With all affec'n, I remain,

Your friend,

WM. CLARK.

P. S.--God alone knows how mutch this all may mean to You

and me, Merne--WILL.

Clark, then, was to meet him at the Falls of the Ohio, and he, too,

counseled haste. Lewis drove his drunken, lazy workmen in the

shipyards as hard as he might, week after week, yet found six weeks

elapsed before at last he was in any wise fitted to set forth. The

delay fretted him, even though he received word from his chief bidding

him not to grieve over the possible loss of a season in his start, but

to do what he might and to possess his soul in patience and in

confidence.

Recruits of proper sort for his purposes did not grow on trees, he

found, but he added a few men to his party now and then, picking them

slowly, carefully. One morning, while engaged in his duties of

supervising the work in progress at the shipyards, he had his

attention attracted to a youth of some seventeen or eighteen years,

who stood, cap in hand, at a little distance, apparently too timid to

accost him.

"What is it, my son?" said he. "Did you wish to see me?"

The boy advanced, smiling.

"You do not know me, sir. My name is Shannon--George Shannon. I used

to know you when you were stationed here with the army. I was a boy

then."

"You are right--I remember you perfectly. So you are grown into a

strapping young man, I see!"

The boy twirled his cap in his hands.

"I want to go along with you, Captain," said he shyly.

"What? You would go with me--do you know what is our journey?"

"No. I only hear that you are going up the Missouri, beyond St. Louis,

into new country. They say there are buffalo there, and Indians. 'Tis

too quiet here for me--I want to see the world with you."

The young leader, after his fashion, stood silently regarding the

other for a time. An instant served him.

"Very well, George," said he. "If your parents consent, you shall go

with me. Your pay will be such that you can save somewhat, and I trust

you will use it to complete your schooling after your return. There

will be adventure and a certain honor in our undertaking. If we come

back successful, I am persuaded that our country will not forget us."

And so that matter was completed. Strangely enough, as the future

proved, were the fortunes of these two to intermingle. From the first,

Shannon attached himself to his captain almost in the capacity of

personal attendant.

At last the great bateau lay ready, launched from the docks and moored

alongside the wharf. Fifty feet long it was, with mast, tholes and

walking-boards for the arduous upstream work. It had received a part

of its cargo, and soon all was in readiness to start.

On the evening of that day Lewis sat down to pen a last letter to his

chief. He wrote in the little office-room of the inn where he was

stopping, and for a time he did not note the presence of young

Shannon, who stood, as usual, silent until his leader might address

him.

"What, is it, George?" he asked at length, looking up.

"Someone waiting to see you, sir--they are in the parlor. They sent

me----"

"They? Who are they?"

"I don't know, sir. She asked me to come for you."

"She. Who is she?"

"I don't know, sir. She spoke to her father. They are in the room just

across the hall, sir."

The face of Meriwether Lewis was pale when presently he opened the

door leading to the apartment which had been indicated. He knew, or

thought he knew, who this must be. But why--why?

The interior was dim. A single lamp of the inefficient sort then in

use served only to lessen the gloom. Presently, however, he saw

awaiting him the figure he had anticipated. Yes, it was she herself.

Almost his heart stood still.

Theodosia Alston arose from the spot where she sat in the deeper

shadows, and came forward to him. He met her, his hands outstretched,

his pulse leaping eagerly in spite of his reproofs. He dreaded, yet

rejoiced.

"Why are you here?" he asked at length.

"My father and I are on a journey down the river to visit Mr.

Blennerhasset on his island. You know his castle there?"

"Why is it that you always come to torment me the more? Another day

and I should have been gone!"

"Torment you, sir?"

"You rebuke me properly. I presume I should have courage to meet you

always--to speak with you--to look into your eyes--to take your hands

in mine. But I find it hard, terribly hard! Each time it is

worse--because each time I must leave you. Why did you not wait one

day?"

She made no reply. He fought for his self-control.

"Mr. Jefferson, how is he?" he demanded at length. "You left him

well?"

"Unchangeable as flint. You said that only the order of your chief

could change your plans. I sought to gain that order--I went myself to

see Mr. Jefferson, that very day you started. He said that nothing

could alter his faith in you, and that nothing could alter the plan

you both had made. He would not call you back. He ordered me not to

attempt to do so; but I have broken the President's command. You find

it hard! Do you think this is not hard for me also?"

"These are strange words. What is your motive? What is it that you

plan? Why should you seek to stop me when I am trying to blot your

face out of my mind? Strange labor is that--to try to forget what I

hold most dear!"

"You shall not leave my face behind you, Captain Lewis!" she said

suddenly.

"What do you mean, Theodosia? What is it?"

"You shall see me every night under the stars, Meriwether Lewis. I

will not let you go. I will not relinquish you!"

He turned swiftly toward her, but paused as if caught back by some

mighty hand.

"What is it?" he said once more, half in a whisper. "What do you mean?

Would you ruin me? Would you see me go to ruin?"

"No! To the contrary, shall I allow you to hasten into the usual ruin

of a man? If you go yonder, what will be the fate of Meriwether Lewis?

You have spoken beautifully to me at times--you have awakened some

feeling of what images a woman may make in a man's heart. I have been

no more to you than any woman is to any man--the image of a dream.

But, that being so beautiful, ought I to allow you to turn it to ruin?

Shall I let you go down in savagery? Ah, if I thought I were

relinquishing you to that, this would be a heavy day for me!"

"Can you fancy what all this means to me?" he broke out hoarsely.

"Yes, I can fancy. And what for me? So much my feeling for you has

been--oh, call it what you like--admiration, affection, maternal

tenderness--I do not know what--but so much have I wished, so much

have I planned for your future in return for what you have given

me--ah, I do not dare tell you. I could not dare come here if I did

not know that I was never to see or speak to you again. It tears my

heart from my bosom that I must say these things to you. I have risked

all my honor in your hands. Is there no reward for that? Is my

recompense to be only your assertion that I torment you, that I

torture you? What! Is there no torture for me as well? The thought

that I have done this covertly, secretly--what do you think that costs

me?"

"Your secret is absolutely safe with me, Theodosia. No, it is not a

secret! We have sworn that neither of us would lay a secret upon the

other. I swear that to you once more."

"And yet you upbraid me when I say I cannot give you up to any fate

but that of happiness and success--oh, not with me, for that is beyond

us two--it is past forever. But happiness----"

"There are some words that burn deep," he said slowly. "I know that I

was not made for happiness."

"Does a woman's wish mean nothing to you? Have I no appeal for you?"

Something like a sob was torn from his bosom.

"You can speak thus with me?" he said huskily. "If you cannot leave me

happiness, can you not at least leave me partial peace of mind?"

She stood slightly swaying, silent.

"And you say you will not relinquish me, you will not let me go to

that fate which surely is mine? You say you will not let me be savage?

I say I am too nearly savage now. Let me go--let me go yonder into the

wilderness, where I may be a gentleman!"

He saw her movement as she turned, heard her sigh.

"Sometimes," she said, "I have thought it worth a woman's life thrown

away that a strong man may succeed. Failure and sacrifice a woman may

offer--not much more. But it is as my father told me!"

"He told you what?"

"That only chivalry would ever make you forget your duty--that you

never could be approached through your weakness, but only through your

strength, through your honor. I cannot approach you through your

strength, and I would not approach you through your weakness, even if

I could. No! Wait. Perhaps some day it will all be made clear for

both of us, so that we may understand. Yes, this is torture for us

both!"

He heard the soft rustle of her gown, her light footfall as she

passed; and once more he was alone.

CHAPTER XI

THE TAMING OF PATRICK GASS

"Shannon, go get the men!"

It was midnight. For more than an hour Meriwether Lewis had sat, his

head drooped, in silence.

"We are going to start?" Shannon's face lightened eagerly. "We'll be

off at sunup?"

"Before that. Get the men--we'll start now! I'll meet you at the

wharf."

Eager enough, Shannon hastened away on his midnight errand. Within an

hour every man of the little party was at the water front, ready for

departure. They found their leader walking up and down, his head bent,

his hands behind him.

It was short work enough, the completion of such plans as remained

unfinished. The great keel-boat lay completed and equipped at the

wharf. The men lost little time in stowing such casks and bales as

remained unshipped. Shannon stepped to his chief.

"All's aboard, sir," said he. "Shall we cast off?"

Without a word Lewis nodded and made his way to his place in the boat.

In the darkness, without a shout or a cheer to mark its passing, the

expedition was launched on its long journey.

Slowly the boat passed along the waterfront of Pittsburgh town. Here

rose gauntly, in the glare of torch or camp fire, the mast of some

half-built schooner. Houseboats were drawn up or anchored alongshore,

long pirogues lay moored or beached, or now and again a giant

broadhorn, already partially loaded with household goods, common

carrier for that human flood passing down the great waterway, stood

out blacker than the shadows in which it lay.

Here and there camp fires flickered, each the center of a ribald group

of the hardy rivermen. Through the night came sounds of roistering,

songs, shouts. Arrested, pent, dammed up, the lusty life of that great

waterway leading into the West and South scarce took time for sleep.

The boat slipped on down, now crossing a shaft of light flung on the

water from some lamp or fire, now blending with the ghostlike shadows

which lay in the moonless night. It passed out of the town itself, and

edged into the shade of the forest that swept continuously for so many

leagues on ahead.

"Hello, there!" called a voice through the darkness, after a time.

"Who goes there?"

The splash of a sweep had attracted the attention of someone on shore.

The light of a camp fire showed.

Every one in the boat looked at the leader, but none vouchsafed a

reply to the hail.

"Ahoy there, the boat!" insisted the same voice.

"Shall I fire on yez to make yez answer a civil question? Come ashore

wance--I can lick the best of yez in three minutes, or me name's not

Patrick Gass!"

The captain of the boat turned slowly in his seat, casting a glance

over his silent crew.

"Set in!" said he, sharply and shortly.

Without a word they obeyed, and with oar and steering-sweep the great

craft slowly swung inshore.

Lewis stepped from the boat, and, not waiting to see whether he was

followed--as he was by all of his men--strode on up the bank into the

circle of light made by the camp fire. About the fire lay a dozen or

more men of the hardest of the river type, which was saying quite

enough; for of all the lawless and desperate characters of the

frontier, none have ever surpassed in reckless audacity and truculence

the men of the old boat trade of the Ohio and the Mississippi.

These fellows lay idly looking at Lewis as he entered the light, not

troubling to accost him.

"Who hailed us?" demanded the latter shortly.

"Begorrah, 'twas me," said a short, strongly built man, stepping

forward from the other side of the fire.

Clad in loose shirt and trousers, like most of his comrades, he showed

a powerful man, a shock of reddish hair falling over his eyes, a

bull-like neck rising above his open shirt in such fashion that the

size of his shoulder muscles might easily be seen.

"'Twas me hailed yez, and what of it?"

"That is what I came ashore to learn," said Meriwether Lewis. "We are

about our business. What concern is that of yours? I am here to

learn."

"Yez can learn, if ye're so anxious," replied the other. "'Tis me

have got three drinks of Monongahaly in me that says I can whip you or

anny man of your boat. And if that aint cause for ye to come ashore,

'tis no fighting man ye are, an' I'll say that to your face!"

It was the accepted fashion of challenge known anywhere along two

thousand miles of waterway at that time, in a country where physical

prowess and readiness to fight were the sole tests of distinction. Woe

to the man who evaded such an issue, once it was offered to him!

The speaker had stepped close to Lewis--so close that the latter did

not need to advance a foot. Instead, he held his ground, and the

challenger, accepting this as a sign of willingness for battle, rushed

at him, with the evident intent of a rough-and-tumble grapple after

the fashion of his kind. To his surprise, he was held off by the

leveled forearm of his opponent, rigid as a bar against his throat.

At this rebuff he roared like a bull, and breaking back rushed in once

more, his giant arms flailing. Lewis swung back half a step, and then,

so quickly that none saw the blow, but only its result was visible, he

shifted on his feet, leaned into his thrust, and smote the joyous

challenger so fell a stroke in the throat as laid him quivering and

helpless. The brief fight was ended all too soon to suit the wishes of

the spectators, used to more prolonged and bloodier encounters.

A sort of gasp, a half roar of surprise and anger, came from the group

upon the ground. Some of the party rose to their feet menacingly. They

met the silent front of the boat party, the clicking of whose

well-oiled rifle-locks offered the most serious of warnings.

The sudden appearance of these visitors, so silent and so

prompt--the swift act of their leader, without threat, without

warning--the instant readiness of the others to back their leader's

initiative--caught every one of these rude fighting men in the

sudden grip of surprise. They hesitated.

"I am no fighting man," said Meriwether Lewis, turning to them; "yet

neither may I be insulted by any lout who chooses to call me ashore to

thrash him. Do you think that an officer of the army has no better

business than that? Who are you that would stop us?"

The group fell back muttering, lacking concerted action. What might

have occurred in case they had reached their arms was prevented by the

action of the party of the first part in this _rencontre_--of the

second part, perhaps, he might better have been called. The fallen

warrior sat up, rubbing his throat; he struggled to his knees, and at

length stood. There was something of rude river chivalry about him,

after all.

"An officer, did ye say?" said he. "Oh, wirra! What have I done now,

and me a soldier! But ye done it fair! And ye niver wance gouged me

nor jumped on me whin I was down! Begorrah, I felt both me eyes to see

if they was in! Ye done it fair, and ye're an officer and a gintleman,

whoever ye be. I'd like to shake hands with ye!"

"I am not shaking hands with ruffians who insult travelers," Captain

Lewis sternly rejoined; but he saw the crestfallen look which swept

over the strong face of the other. "There, man," said he, "since you

seem to mean well!"

He shook hands with his opponent, who, stung by the rebuke, now began

to sniffle.

"Sor," said he, "I am no ruffian. I am a soldier meself, and on me way

to join me company at Kaskasky, down below. Me time was out awhile

back, and I came East to the States to have a bit av a fling before I

enlisted again. Now, what money I haven't give to me parents I've

spint like a man. I have had me fling for awhile, and I'm goin' back

to sign on again. Sor, I am a sergeant and a good wan, though I do say

it. Me record is clean. I am Patrick Gass, first sergeant of the Tinth

Dragoons, the same now stationed at Kaskasky. Though ye are not in

uniform, I know well enough ye are an officer. Sor, I ask yer

pardon--'twas only the whisky made me feel sportin' like at the time,

do ye mind?"

"Gass, Patrick Gass, you said?"

"Yis, sor, of the Tinth. Barrin' me love for fightin' I am a good

soldier. There are stripes on me sleeves be rights, but me old coat's

hangin' in the barracks down below."

Lewis stood looking curiously at the man before him, the power of

whose grip he had felt in his own. He cast an eye over his erect

figure, his easy and natural dropping into the position of a soldier.

"You say the Tenth?" said he briefly. "You have been with the colors?

Look here, my man, do you want to serve?"

"I am going right back to Kaskasky for it, sor."

"Why not enlist with us? I need men. We are off for the West, up the

Missouri--for a long trip, like enough. You seem a well-built man, and

you have seen service. I know men when I see them. I want men of

courage and good temper. Will you go?"

"I could not say, sor. I would have to ask leave at Kaskasky. I gave

me word I'd come back after I'd had me fling here in the East, ye

see."

"I'll take care of that. I have full authority to recruit among

enlisted men."

"Excuse me, sor, ye are sayin' ye are goin' up the Missouri? Then I

know yez--yez are the Captain Lewis that has been buildin' the big

boat the last two months up at the yards--Captain Lewis from

Washington."

"Yes, and from the Ohio country before then--and Kentucky, too. I am

to join Captain Clark at the Point of Rocks on the Ohio. I need

another oar. Come, my man, we are on our way. Two minutes ought to be

enough for you to decide."

"I'll need not the half of two!" rejoined Patrick Gass promptly. "Give

me leave of my captain, and I am with yez! There is nothin' in the

world I'd liever see than the great plains and the buffalo. 'Tis fond

of travel I am, and I'd like to see the ind of the world before I

die."

"You will come as near seeing the end of it with us as anywhere else I

know," rejoined Lewis quietly. "Get your war-bag and come aboard."

In this curious fashion Patrick Gass of the army--later one of the

journalists of the expedition, and always one of its most faithful and

efficient members--signed his name on the rolls of the Lewis and Clark

expedition.

There was not one of the frontiersmen in the boat who had any comment

to make upon any phase of the transaction; indeed, it seemed much in

the day's work to them. But from that instant every man in the boat

knew he had a leader who could be depended upon for prompt and

efficient action in any emergency; and from that moment, also, their

leader knew he could depend on his men.

"I have nothing to complain of," said Patrick Gass, addressing his new

friends impartially, as he shifted his belongings to suit him and took

his place at a rowing seat. "I have nothing to complain of. I've been

sayin' I would like to have one more rale fight before I enlisted--the

army is too tame for a fellow of rale spirit. None o' thim at the camp

yonder, where I was two days, would take it on with me after the first

day. I was fair longin' for something to interest me--and be jabers, I

found it! Now I am continted to ind me vacation and come back to the

monothony of business life."

The boat advanced steadily enough thereafter throughout the night.

They pulled ashore at dawn, and, after the fashion of experienced

travelers, were soon about the business of the morning meal.

The leader of the party drew apart for the morning plunge which was

his custom. Cover lacking on the bare bar where they had landed, he

was not fully out of sight when at length, freshened by his plunge,

he stood drying himself for dressing. Unconsciously, his arm extended,

he looked for all the world the very statue of the young Apoxyomenos

of the Vatican--the finest figure of a man that the art of antiquity

has handed down to us.

As that smiling youth out of the past stood, scraper in hand, drying

himself after the games, so now stood this young American, type of a

new race, splendid as the Greeks themselves in the immortal beauty of

life. His white body shining in the sun, every rolling muscle plainly

visible--even that rare muscle over the hip beloved of the ancients,

but now forgotten of sculptors, because rarely seen on a man today--so

comely was he, so like a god in his clean youth, that Patrick Gass,

unhampered by backwardness himself, turned to his new companions, whom

already he addressed each by his first name.

"George," said he to young Shannon, "George, saw ye ever the like of

yon? What a man! Lave I had knowed he could strip like yon, niver

would I have taken the chance I did last night. 'Tis wonder he didn't

kill me--in which case I'd niver have had me job. The Lord loves us

Irish, anny way you fix it!"

CHAPTER XII

CAPTAIN WILLIAM CLARK

"Will!"

"Merne!"

The two young men gripped hands as the great bateau swung inshore at

the Point of Rocks on the Kentucky side of the Ohio. They needed not

to do more, these two. The face of each told the other what he felt.

Their mutual devotion, their generosity and unselfishness, their

unflagging unity of purpose, their perfect manly comradeship--what

wonder so many have called the story of these two more romantic than

romance itself?

"It has been long since we met, Will," said Meriwether Lewis. "I have

been eating my heart out up at Pittsburgh. I got your letter, and glad

enough I was to have it. I had been fearing that I would have to go on

alone. Now I feel as if we already had succeeded. I cannot tell

you--but I don't need to try."

"And you, Merne," rejoined William Clark--Captain William Clark, if

you please, border fighter, leader of men, one of a family of leaders

of men, tall, gaunt, red-headed, blue-eyed, smiling, himself a

splendid figure of a man--"you, Merne, are a great man now, famous

there in Washington! Mr. Jefferson's right-hand man--we hear of you

often across the mountains. I have been waiting for you here, as

anxious as yourself."

"The water is low," complained Lewis, "and a thousand things have

delayed us. Are you ready to start?"

"In ten minutes--in five minutes. I will have my boy York go up and

get my rifle and my bags."

"Your brother, General Clark, how is he?"

William Clark shrugged with a smile which had half as much sorrow as

mirth in it.

"The truth is, Merne, the general's heart is broken. He thinks that

his country has forgotten him."

"Forgotten him? From Detroit to New Orleans--we owe it all to George

Rogers Clark. It was he who opened the river from Pittsburgh to New

Orleans. He'll not need, now, to be an ally of France again. Once more

a member of your family will be in at the finding of a vast new

country!"

"Merne, I've sold my farm. I got ten thousand dollars for my

place--and so I am off with you, not with much of it left in my

pockets, but with a clean bill and a good conscience, and some of the

family debts paid. I care not how far we go, or when we come back. I

thank Mr. Jefferson for taking me on with you. 'Tis the gladdest time

in all my life!"

"We are share and share alike, Will," said his friend Lewis, soberly.

"Tell me, can we get beyond the Mississippi this fall, do you think?"

"Doubtful," said Clark. "The Spanish of the valley are not very well

reconciled to this Louisiana sale, and neither are the French. They

have been holding all that country in partnership, each people afraid

of the other, and both showing their teeth to us. But I hear the

commission is doing well at St. Louis, and I presume the transfer will

be made this fall or winter. After that they cannot stop us from going

on. Tell me, have you heard anything of Colonel Burr's plan? There

have come new rumors of the old attempt to separate the West from the

government at Washington, and he is said to have agents scattered from

St. Louis to New Orleans."

He did not note the sudden flush on his friend's face--indeed, gave

him no time to answer, but went on, absorbed in his own executive

details.

"What sort of men have you in your party, Merne?"

"Only good ones, I think. Young Shannon and an army sergeant by the

name of Gass, Patrick Gass--they should be very good men. I brought on

Collins from Maryland and Pete Weiser from Pennsylvania, also good

stuff, I think. McNeal, Potts, Gibson--I got those around Carlisle. We

need more men."

"I have picked out a few here," said Clark. "You know Kentucky breeds

explorers. I have a good blacksmith, Shields, and Bill Bratton is

another blacksmith--either can tinker a gun if need be. Then I have

John Coalter, an active, strapping chap, and the two Fields boys, whom

I know to be good men; and Charlie Floyd, Nate Pryor, and a couple of

others--Warner and Whitehouse. We should get the rest at the forts

around St. Louis. I want to take my boy York along--a negro is always

good-natured under hardship, and a laugh now and then will not hurt

any of us."

Lewis nodded assent.

"Your judgment of men is as good as mine, Will. But come, it is

September, and the leaves are falling. All my men have the fall hunt

in their blood--they will start for any place at any moment. Let us

move. Suppose you take the boat on down, and let me go across,

horseback, to Kaskaskia. I have some business there, and I will try

for a few more recruits. We must have fifty men."

"Nothing shall stop us, Merne, and we cannot start too soon. I want to

see fresh grass every night for a year. But you--how can you be

content to punish yourself for so long? For me, I am half Indian; but

I expected to have heard long ago that you were married and settled

down as a Virginia squire, raising tobacco and negroes, like anyone

else. Tell me, how about that old affair of which you once used to

confide to me when we were soldiering together here, years back? 'Twas

a fair New York maid, was it not? From what you said I fancied her

quite without comparison, in your estimate, at least. Yet here you

are, vagabonding out into a country where you may be gone for

years--or never come back at all, for all we know. Have a care,

man--pretty girls do not wait!"

As he spoke, so strange a look passed over his friend's face that

William Clark swiftly put out a hand.

"What is it, Merne? Pardon me! Did she--not wait?"

His companion looked at him gravely.

"She married, something like three years ago. She is the wife of Mr.

Alston, a wealthy planter of the Carolinas, a friend of her father and

a man of station. A good marriage for her--for him--for both."

The sadness of his face spoke more than his words to his warmest

friend, and left them both silent for a time. William Clark ceased

breaking bark between his fingers and flipping away the pieces.

"Well, in my own case," said he at length, "I have no ties to cut.

'Tis as well--we shall have no faces of women to trouble us on our

trails out yonder. They don't belong there, Merne--the ways of the

trappers are best. But we must not talk too much of this," he added.

"I'll see you yet well settled down as a Virginia squire--your white

hair hanging down on your shoulders and a score of grandchildren about

your knees to hamper you."

William Clark meant well--his friend knew that; so now he smiled, or

tried to smile.

"Merne," the red-headed one went on, throwing an arm across his

friend's shoulders, "pass over this affair--cut it out of your heart.

Believe me, believe me, the friendship of men is the only one that

lasts. We two have eaten from the same pannikin, slept under the same

bear-robe before now--we still may do so. And look at the adventures

before us!"

"You are a boy, Will," said Meriwether Lewis, actually smiling now,

"and I am glad you are and always will be; because, Will, I never was

a boy--I was born old. But now," he added sharply, as he rose, "a

pleasant journey to us both--and the longer the better!"

CHAPTER XIII

UNDER THREE FLAGS

The day was but beginning for the young American republic. All the air

was vibrant with the passion of youth and romance. Yonder in the West

there might be fame and fortune for any man with courage to adventure.

The world had not yet settled down to inexorable grooves of life, from

which no human soul might fight its way out save at cost of sweetness

and content and hope. The chance of one man might still equal that of

another--yonder, in that vast new world along the Mississippi, beyond

the Mississippi, more than a hundred years ago.

Into that world there now pressed a flowing, seething, restless mass,

a new population seeking new avenues of hope and life, of adventure

and opportunity. Riflemen, axmen, fighting men, riding men, boatmen,

plowmen--they made ever out and on, laughing the Cossack laugh at the

mere thought of any man or thing withstanding them.

Over this new world, alert, restless, full of Homeric youth, full of

the lust of life and adventure, floated three flags. The old war of

France and Spain still smoldered along the great waterway into the

South. The flag of Great Britain had withdrawn itself to the North.

The flag of our republic had not yet advanced.

Those who made the Western population at that time cared little enough

about flags or treaty rights. They concerned themselves rather with

possession. Let any who liked observe the laws. The strong made their

own laws from day to day, and wrote them in one general codex of

adventure and full-blooded, roistering life. The world was young. Buy

land? No, why buy it, when taking it was so much more simple and

delightful?

Based on this general lust of conquest, this Saxon zeal for new

territories, must have been that inspiration of Thomas Jefferson in

his venture of the far Northwest. He saw there the splendid vision of

his ideal republic. He saw there a citizenry no longer riotous and

roistering, not yet frenzied or hysterical, but strong, sober, and

constant. His was a glorious vision. Would God we had fully realized

his dream!

There were three flags afloat here or there in the Western country

then, and none knew what land rightly belonged under any of the three.

Indeed, over the heart of that region now floated all the three

banners at the same time--that of Spain, passing but still proud, for

a generation actual governor if not actual owner of all the country

beyond the Mississippi, so far as it had any government at all; that

of France, owner of the one great seaport, New Orleans, settler of the

valley for a generation; and that of the new republic only just

arriving into the respect of men either of the East or the West--a

republic which had till recently exacted respect chiefly through the

stark deadliness of its fighting and marching men.

It was a splendid game in which these two boys, Meriwether Lewis and

William Clark--they scarcely were more than boys--now were entering.

And with the superb unconsciousness and self-trust of youth, they

played it with dash and confidence, never doubting their success.

The prediction of William Clark none the less came true. In this

matter of flags, autocratic Spain was not disposed to yield. De

Lassus, Spanish commandant for so many years, would not let the young

travelers go beyond St. Louis, even so far as Charette. He must be

sure that his country--which, by right or not, he had ruled so

long--had not only been sold by Spain to France, but that the cession

had been duly confirmed; and, furthermore, he must be sure that the

cession by France to the United States had also been concluded

formally.

Traders and trappers had been passing through from the plains country,

yes--but this was a different matter. Here was a flotilla under a

third flag--it must not pass. Spanish official dignity was not thus to

be shaken, not to be hurried. All must wait until the formalities had

been concluded.

This delay meant the loss of the entire winter. The two young leaders

of the expedition were obliged to make the best of it they could.

Clark formed an encampment in the timbered country across the

Mississippi from St. Louis, and soon had his men comfortably ensconced

in cabins of their own building. Meanwhile he picked up more men

around the adjacent military posts--Ordway and Howard and Frazer of

the New England regiment; Cruzatte, Labiche, Lajeunesse, Drouillard

and other voyageurs for watermen. They made a hardy and efficient band.

Upon Captain Lewis devolved most of the scientific work of the

expedition. It was necessary for him to spend much time in St. Louis,

to complete his store of instruments, to extend his own studies in

scientific matters. Perhaps, after all, the success of the expedition

was furthered by this delay upon the border.

Twenty-nine men they had on the expedition rolls by spring--forty-five

in all, counting assistants who were not officially enrolled. Their

equipment for the entire journey out and back, of more than two years

in duration, was to cost them not more than twenty-five hundred

dollars. A tiny army, a meager equipment, for the taking of the

richest empire of the world!

But now this army of a score and a half of men was to witness the

lowering before it of two of the greatest flags then known to the

world. It already had seen the retirement of that of Great Britain.

The wedge which Burr and Merry and Yrujo had so dreaded was now about

to be driven home. The country must split apart--Great Britain must

fall back to the North--these other powers, France and Spain, must

make way to the South and West.

The army of the new republic, under two loyal boys for leaders,

pressed forward, not with drums or banners, not with the roll of

kettledrums, not with the pride and circumstance of glorious war. The

soldiers of its ranks had not even a uniform--they were clad in

buckskin and linsey, leather and fur. They had no trained fashion of

march, yet stood shoulder and shoulder together well enough. They were

not drilled into the perfection of trained soldiers, perhaps, but each

could use his rifle, and knew how far was one hundred yards.

The boats were coming down with furs from the great West--from the

Omahas, the Kaws, the Osages. Keel boats came up from the lower river,

mastering a thousand miles and more of that heavy flood to bring back

news from New Orleans. Broadhorns and keel-boats and sailboats and

river pirogues passed down.

The strange, colorful life of the little capital of the West went on

eagerly. St. Louis was happy; Detroit was glum--the fur trade had been

split in half. Great Britain had lost--the furs now went out down the

Mississippi instead of down the St. Lawrence. A world was in the

making and remaking; and over that disturbed and divided world there

still floated the three rival flags.

Five days before Christmas of 1803, the flag of France fluttered down

in the old city of New Orleans. They had dreaded the fleet of Great

Britain at New Orleans--had hoped for the fleet of France. They got a

fleet of Americans in flatboats--rude men with long rifles and

leathern garments, who came under paddle and oar, and not under sail.

Laussat was the last French commandant in the valley. De Lassus, the

Spaniard, holding onto his dignity up the Missouri River beyond St.

Louis, still clung to the sovereignty that Spain had deserted. And

across the river, in a little row of log cabins, lay the new army with

the new flag--an army of twenty-nine men, backed by twenty-five

hundred dollars of a nation's hoarded war gold!

It was a time for hope or for despair--a time for success or

failure--a time for loyalty or for treason. And that army of

twenty-nine men in buckskin altered the map of the world, the history

of a vast continent.

While Meriwether Lewis gravely went about his scientific studies, and

William Clark merrily went about his dancing with the gay St. Louis

belles, when not engaged in drilling his men beyond the river, the

winter passed. Spring came. The ice ceased to run in the river, the

geese honked northward in millions, the grass showed green betimes.

The men in Clark's encampment were almost mutinous with lust for

travel. But still the authorities had not completed their formalities;

still the flag of Spain floated over the crossbars of the gate of the

stone fortress, last stronghold of Spain in the valley of our great

river.

March passed, and April. Not until the 9th of May, in the year 1804,

were matters concluded to suit the punctilio of France and Spain

alike. Now came the assured word that the republic of the United

States intended to stand on the Louisiana purchase, Constitution or no

Constitution--that the government purposed to take over the land which

it had bought. On this point Mr. Jefferson was firm. De Lassus yielded

now.

On that May morning the soldiers of Spain manning the fortifications

of the old post stood at parade when the drums of the Americans were

heard. One company of troops, under command of Captain Stoddard,

represented our army of occupation. Our real army of invasion was that

in buckskin and linsey and leather--twenty-nine men; whose captain,

Meriwether Lewis, was to be our official representative at the

ceremony of transfer.

De Lassus choked with emotion as he handed over the keys and the

archives which so long had been under his charge.

"Sir," said he, addressing the commander, "I speak for France as well

as for Spain. I hand over to you the title from France, as I hand over

to you the rule from Spain. Henceforth both are for you. I salute you,

gentlemen!"

With the ruffle of the few American drums the transfer was gravely

acknowledged. The flag of Spain slowly dropped from the staff where it

had floated. That of France took its place, and for one day floated by

courtesy over old St. Louis. On the morrow arose a strange new

flag--the flag of the United States. It was supported by one company

of regulars and by the little army of joint command--the army of Lewis

and Clark--twenty-nine enlisted men in leather!

"Time now, at last!" said William Clark to his friend. "Time for us to

say farewell! Boats--three of them--are waiting, and my men are

itching to see the buffalo plains. What is the latest news in the

village, Merne?" he added. "I've not been across there for two

weeks."

"News enough," said Meriwether Lewis gravely. "I just have word of the

arrival in town of none other than Colonel Aaron Burr."

"The Vice-President of the United States! What does he here? Tell me,

is he bound down the river? Is there anything in all this talk I have

heard about Colonel Burr? Is he alone?"

"No. I wish he were alone. Will, she is with him--his daughter, Mrs.

Alston!"

"Well, what of that? Oh, I know--I know, but why should you meet?"

"How can we help meeting here in the society of this little town,

whose people are like one family? They have been invited by Mr.

Chouteau to come to his house--I also am a guest there. Will, what

shall I do? It torments me!"

"Oh, tut, tut!" said light-hearted William Clark. "What shall you do?

Why, in the first place, pull the frown from your face, Merne. Now,

this young lady forsakes her husband, travels--with her father, to be

sure, but none the less she travels--along the same trail taken by a

certain young man down the Ohio, up the Mississippi, here to St.

Louis. Should you call that a torment? Not I! I should flatter myself

over it. A torment? Should you call the flowers that change in

sweetness as we ride along through the wood a torment? Let them beware

of me! I am no respecter of fortune when it comes to a pretty face, my

friend. It is mine if it is here, and if I may kiss it--don't rebuke

me, Merne! I am full of the joy of life. Woman--the nearest woman--to

call her a torment! And you a soldier! I don't blame them. Torment

you? Yes, they will, so long as you allow it. Then don't allow it!"

"You preach very well, Will. Of course, I know you don't practise what

you preach--who does?"

"Well, perhaps! But, seriously, why take life so hard, Merne? Why

don't you relax--why don't you swim with the current for a time? We

live but once. Tell me, do you think there was but one woman made for

each of us men in all the world? My faith, if that be true, I have had

more than my share, I fear, as I have passed along! But even when it

comes to marrying and settling down to hoeing an acre of corn-land and

raising a shoat or two for the family--tell me, Merne, what woman does

a man marry? Doesn't he marry the one at hand--the one that is ready

and waiting? Do you think fortune would always place the one woman in

the world ready for the one man at the one time, just when the hoeing

and the shoat-raising was to the fore? It is absurd, man! Nature dares

not take such chances--and does not."

Lewis did not answer his friend's jesting argument.

"Listen, Merne," Clark went on. "The memory of a kiss is better than

the memory of a tear. No, listen, Merne! The print of a kiss is sweet

as water of a spring when you are athirst. And the spring shows none

the worse for the taste of heaven it gave you. Lips and water

alike--they tell no tales. They are goods the gods gave us as part of

life. But the great thirst--the great thirst of a man for power, for

deeds, for danger, for adventure, for accomplishment--ah, that is

ours, and that is harder to slake, I am thinking! A man's deeds are

his life. They tell the tale."

"His deeds! Yes, you are right, they do, indeed, tell the tale. Let us

hope the reckoning will stand clean at last."

"Merne, you are a soldier, not a preacher."

"Will, you are neither--you are only a boy!"

CHAPTER XIV

THE RENT IN THE ARMOR

Aaron Burr came to St. Louis in the spring of 1804 as much in

desperation as with definite plans. Matters were going none too well

for him. All the time he was getting advices from the lower country,

where lay the center of his own audacious plans; but the thought of

the people was directed westward, up the Missouri.

The fame of the Lewis and Clark expedition now had gathered volume.

Constitution or no Constitution, the purchase of Louisiana had been

completed, the transfer had been formally made. The American wedge was

driving on through. If ever he was to do anything for his own

enterprise, it was now high time.

Burr's was a mind to see to the core of any problem in statecraft. He

knew what this sudden access of interest in the West indicated, so far

as his plans were concerned. It must be stopped--else it would be too

late for any dream of Aaron Burr for an empire of his own.

His resources were dwindling. He needed funds for the many secret

agents in his employ--needed yet more funds for the purchase and

support of his lands in the South. And the minister of Great Britain

had given plain warning that unless this expedition up the Missouri

could be stopped, no further aid need be expected from him.

Little by little Burr saw hope slip away from him. True, Captain Lewis

was still detained by his duties among the Osage Indians, a little way

out from the city; but the main expedition had actually started.

William Clark, occupied with the final details, did not finally get

his party under way until five days after the formal transfer of the

new territory of Louisiana to our flag, and three days after Burr's

arrival. At last, however, on the 14th of May, the three boats had

left St. Louis wharf, with their full complement of men and the last

of the supplies aboard for the great voyage. Captain Clark, ever

light-hearted and careless of his spelling-book, if not of his rifle,

says it was "a jentle brease" which aided the oars and the square-sail

as they started up the river.

Assuredly the bark of Aaron Burr was sailing under no propitious

following wind. Distracted, he paced up and down his apartment in the

home where he was a guest, preoccupied, absorbed, almost ready to

despair. He spoke but little, but time and again he cast an estimating

eye upon the young woman who accompanied him.

"You are ill, Theodosia!" he exclaimed at last "Come, come, my

daughter, this will not do! Have you no arts of the toilet that can

overcome the story of your megrims? Shall I get you some sort of

bitter herbs? You need your brightest face, your best apparel now.

These folk of St. Louis must see us at our best, my dear, our very

best. Besides----"

He needed not to complete the sentence. Theodosia Alston knew well

enough what was in her father's mind--knew well enough why they both

were here. It was because she would not have come alone. And she knew

that the burden of the work they had at heart must once more lie upon

her shoulders. She once more must see Captain Meriwether Lewis--and it

must be soon, if ever. He was reported as being ready to leave town at

once upon his return from the Osage Indians.

But courtesy did not fail the young Virginian, and at last--although

with dread in his own heart--within an hour of his actual departure,

he called to pay his compliments to guests so distinguished as these,

to a man so high in rank under the government which he himself served.

He found it necessary to apologize for his garb, suited rather to the

trail than to the drawing-room. He stood in the hall of the Chouteau

home, a picture of the soldier of the frontier rather than the

courtier of the capital.

His three-cornered military hat, his blue uniform coat--these made the

sole formality of his attire, for his feet were moccasined, his limbs

were clad in tight-fitting buckskins, and his shirt was of rough

linsey, suitable for the work ahead.

"I ask your pardon, Colonel Burr," said he, "for coming to you as I

am, but the moment for my start is now directly at hand. I could not

leave without coming to present my duties to you and Mrs. Alston.

Indeed, I have done so at once upon my return to town. I pray you

carry back to Mr. Jefferson my sincerest compliments. Say to him, if

you will, that we are setting forth with high hopes of success."

Formal, cold, polite--it was the one wish of Captain Lewis to end this

interview as soon as he might, and to leave all sleeping dogs lying as

they were.

But Aaron Burr planned otherwise. His low, deep voice was never more

persuasive, his dark eye never more compelling--nor was his bold heart

ever more in trepidation than now, as he made excuse for

delay--delay--delay.

"My daughter, Mrs. Alston, will join us presently," he said. "So you

are ready, Captain Lewis?"

"We are quite prepared, Colonel Burr. My men are on ahead two days'

journey, camped at St. Charles, and waiting for me to overtake them.

Dr. Saugrain, Mr. Chouteau, Mr. Labadie--one or two others of the

gentlemen in the city--are so kind as to offer me a convoy of honor so

far as St. Charles. We are quite flattered. So now we start--they are

waiting for me at the wharf now, and I must go. All bridges are burned

behind me!"

"_All bridges burned?_"

The deep voice of Aaron Burr almost trembled. His keen eye searched

the face of the young man before him.

"Every one," replied the young Virginian. "I do not know how or when I

may return. Perhaps Mr. Clark or myself may come back by sea--should

we ever reach the sea. We can only trust to Providence."

He was bowing and extending his own hand in farewell, with polite

excuses as to his haste--relieved that his last ordeal had been spared

him. He turned, as he felt rather than heard the approach of another,

whose coming caused his heart almost to stop beating--the woman

dreaded and demanded by every fiber of his being.

"Oh, not so fast, not so fast!" laughed Theodosia Alston as she came

into the room, offering her hand. "I heard you talking, and have been

hurrying to pretty myself up for Captain Lewis. What? Were you trying

to run away without ever saying good-by to me? And how you are

prettied up!"

Her gaze, following her light speech, resolved itself into one of

admiration. Theodosia Alston, as she looked, found him a goodly

picture as he stood ready for the trail.

"I was just going, yes," stammered Meriwether Lewis. "I had hoped----"

But what he had hoped he did not say.

"Why might we not walk down with you to the wharf, if you are so soon

to go?" she demanded--her own self-control concealing any

disappointment she may have felt at her cavalier reception.

"An excellent idea!" said Aaron Burr, backing his daughter's hand, and

trusting to her to have some plan. "A warrior must spend his last word

with some woman, captain! Go you on ahead--I surrender my daughter to

you, and I shall follow presently to bid you a last Godspeed. You said

those other gentlemen were to join you there?"

Meriwether Lewis found himself walking down the narrow street of the

frontier settlement between the lines of hollyhocks and budding roses

which fronted many of the little residences. It was spring, the air

was soft. He was young. The woman at his side was very beautiful. So

far as he could see they were alone.

They passed along the street, turned, made their way down the

rock-faced bluff to the water front; but still they were alone. All

St. Louis was at the farther end of the wharf, waiting for a last look

at the idol of the town.

Theodosia sighed.

"And so Captain Lewis is going to have his way as usual? And he was

going--in spite of all--even without saying good-by to me!"

"Yes, I would have preferred that."

"Captain Lewis is mad. Look at that river! They say that when the boat

started last week it took them an hour to make a quarter of a mile,

when they struck into the Missouri. How many thousands of hours will

it take to ascend to the mountains? How will you get your boats across

the mountains? What cascades and rapids lie on ahead? Your men will

mutiny and destroy you. You cannot succeed--you will fail!"

"I thank you, madam!"

"Oh, you must start now, I presume--in fact, you have started; but I

want you to come back before your obstinacy has driven you too far."

"Just what do you mean?"

"Listen. You have given me no time, unkind as you are--not a

moment--at an hour like this! In these unsettled times, who knows what

may happen? In that very unsettlement lies the probable success of the

plan which my father and I have put before you so often. We need you

to help us. When are you going to come back to us, Merne?"

As she spoke, they were approaching the long wharf along the water

front, lined with rude craft which plied the rivers at that

time--flatboats, keel-boats, pirogues, canoes--and, far off at the

extremity of the line, the boat which Lewis and his friends were to

take. A party of idlers and observers stood about it even now. The

gaze of the young leader was fixed in that direction. He did not make

any immediate sign that he had heard her speech.

"I told Shannon, my aide, to meet me here," he said at last. "He was

to fetch my long spyglass. There are certain little articles of my

equipment over yonder in the wharf shed. Would you excuse me for just

a moment?"

He stooped at the low door and entered. But she followed him--followed

after him unconsciously, without plan, feeling only that he must not

go, that she could not let him away from her.

She saw the light floating through the door fall on his dense hair,

long, loosely bagged in its cue. She saw the quality of his strong

figure, in all the fittings of a frontiersman, saw his stern face, his

troubled eye, saw the unconscious strength which marked his every

movement as he strode about, eager, as it seemed to her, only to be

done with his last errands, and away on that trail which so long had

beckoned to him.

The strength of the man, the strength of his purpose--the sudden and

full realization of both--this caught her like a tangible thing, and

left her no more than the old, blind, unformed protest. He must not

go! She could not let him go!

But the words she had spoken had caught him, after all. He had been

pondering--had been trying to set them aside as if unheard.

"Coming back?" he began, and stopped short once more. They were now

both within the shelter of the old building.

"Yes, Merne!" she broke out suddenly. "When are you coming back to me,

Merne?"

He stood icy silent, motionless, for just a moment. It seemed to her

as if he was made of stone. Then he spoke very slowly, deliberately.

"Coming back to _you_? And you call me by that name? Only my mother,

Mr. Jefferson and Will Clark ever did so."

"Oh, stiff-necked man! It is so hard to be kind with you! And all I

have ever done--every time I have followed you in this way, each time

I have humiliated myself thus--it always was only in kindness for

you!"

He made no reply.

"Fate ran against us, Merne," she went on tremblingly. "We have both

accepted fate. But in a woman's heart are many mansions. Is there none

in a man's--in yours--for me? Can't I ask a place in a good man's

heart--an innocent, clean place? Oh, think not you have had all the

unhappiness in your own heart! Is all the world's misery yours? I

don't want you to go away, Merne, but if you do--if you must--won't

you come back? Oh, won't you, Merne?"

Her voice was trembling, her hand half raised, her eyes sought after

him. She stood partly in shadow, the flare of light from the open door

falling over her face. She might have been some saint of old in

pictured guise; but she was a woman, alive, beautiful, delectable,

alluring--especially now, with this tone in her voice, this strangely

beseeching look in her eyes.

Her hands were almost lifted to be held out to him. She stood almost

inclined to him, wholly unconscious of her attitude, forgetting that

her words were imploring, remembering only that he was going.

He seemed not to hear her voice as he stood there, but somewhere as if

out of some savage past, a voice did speak to him, saying that when a

man is sore athirst, then a man may drink--that the well-spring would

not miss the draft, and would tell no tale of it!

He stood, as many another man has stood, and fought the fight many

another man has fought--the fight between man the primitive and man

the gentleman, chivalry contending with impulse, blood warring with

breeding.

[Illustration: "'Oh, Theo, what have I done?'"]

"Yes!" so said the voice in his ear. "Why should the spring grudge a

draft to a soul aflame with an undying thirst? Vows? What have vows to

do with this? Duty? What is duty to a man perishing?--I know not what

it was. I heard it. I felt it. Forgive me, it was not I myself! Oh,

Theo, what have I done?"

She could not speak, could not even sob. Neither horror nor resentment

was possible for her, nor any protest, save the tears which welled

silently, terribly.

Unable longer to endure this, Meriwether Lewis turned to leave behind

him his last hope of happiness, and to face alone what he now felt to

be the impenetrable night of his own destiny. He never knew when his

hands fell from Theodosia Alston's face, or when he turned away; but

at last he felt himself walking, forcing his head upright, his face

forward.

He passed, a tall, proud man in his half-savage trappings--a man in

full ownership of splendid physical powers; but as he walked his feet

were lead, his heart was worse than lead. And though his face was

turned away from her, he knew that always he would see what he had

left--this picture of Theodosia weeping--this picture of a saint

mocked, of an altar desecrated. She wept, and it was because of him!

The dumb cry of his remorse, his despair, must have struck back to

where she still stood, her hands on her bosom, staring at him as he

passed:

"Theo! Theo! What have I done? What have I done?"

PART II

CHAPTER I

UNDER ONE FLAG

What do you bring, oh, mighty river--and what tidings do you carry

from the great mountains yonder in the unknown lands? In what region

grew this great pine which swims with you to the sea? What fat lands

reared this heavy trunk, which sinks at last, to be buried in the

sands?

What jewels lie under your flood? What rich minerals float impalpably

in your tawny waters? Across what wide prairies did you come--among

what hills--through what vast forests? How long, great river, was your

journey, sufficient to afford so tremendous a gathering of the waters?

A hundred years ago the great Missouri made no answer to these

questions. It was open highway only for those who dared. The man who

asked its secrets must read them for himself. What a time and place

for adventure! What a time and place for men!

From sea to sea, across an unknown, fabled mountain range, lay our

wilderness, now swiftly trebled by a miracle in statecraft. The flag

which floated over the last stockade of Spain, the furthest outpost of

France, now was advancing step by step, inch by inch, up the giant

flood of the Missouri, borne on the flagship of a flotilla consisting

of one flatboat and two skiffs, carrying an army whose guns were one

swivel piece and thirty rifles.

Not without toil and danger was this enterprise to advance. When at

length the last smoke of a settler's cabin had died away over the

lowland forest, the great river began in earnest to exact its toll.

Continually the boats, heavily laden as they were, ran upon shifting

bars of sand, or made long détours to avoid some _chevaux de frise_ of

white-headed snags sunk in the current with giant uptossing limbs.

Floating trees came down resistlessly on the spring rise, demanding

that all craft should beware of them; caving banks, in turn, warned

the boats to keep off; and always the mad current of the stream, never

relaxing in vehemence, laid on the laboring boats the added weight of

its mountain of waters, gaining in volume for nearly three thousand

miles.

The square sail at times aided the great bateau when the wind came

upstream, but no sail could serve for long on so tortuous a water. The

great oars, twenty-two in all, did their work in lusty hands, hour

after hour, but sometimes they could hardly hold the boats against the

power of the June rise. The setting poles could not always find good

bottom, but sometimes the men used these in the old keel boat fashion,

traveling along the walking-boards on the sides of the craft, head

down, bowed over the setting-poles--the same manner of locomotion that

had conquered the Mississippi.

When sail and oar and setting-pole proved unavailing, the men were

out and overboard, running the banks with the cordelle. As they

labored thus on the line, like so many yoked cattle, using each ounce

of weight and straining muscle to hold the heavy boat against the

current, snags would catch the line, stumps would foul it, trees

growing close to the bank's edge would arrest it. Sometimes the great

boat, swung sidewise in the current in spite of the last art of the

steersmen, would tauten the line like a tense fiddle-string, flipping

the men, like so many insects, from their footing, and casting them

into the river, to emerge as best they might.

Cruzatte, Labiche, Drouillard--all the French voyageurs--with the

infinite French patience smiled and sweated their way through. The New

Englanders grew grim; the Kentuckians fumed and swore. But little by

little, inch by inch, creeping, creeping, paying the toll exacted,

they went on day by day, leaving the old world behind them, morning by

morning advancing farther into the new.

The sun blistered them by day; clouds of pests tormented them by

night; miasmatic lowlands threatened them both night and day. But they

went on.

The immensity of the river itself was an appalling thing; its bends

swept miles long in giant arcs. But bend after bend they spanned, bar

after bar they skirted, bank after bank they conquered--and went on.

In the water as much as out of it, drenched, baked, gaunt, ragged,

grim, they paid the toll.

A month passed, and more. The hunters exulted that game was so easy to

get, for they must depend in large part on the game killed by the

way. At the mouth of the Kansas River, near where a great city one day

was to stand, they halted on the twenty-sixth of June. Deer, turkeys,

bear, geese, many "goslins," as quaint Will Clark called them,

rewarded their quest.

July came and well-nigh passed. They reached the mouth of the great

Platte River, far out into the Indian country. Over this unmapped

country ranged the Otoes, the Omahas, the Pawnees, the Kansas, the

Osages, the Rees, the Sioux. This was the buffalo range where the

tribes had fought immemorially.

It was part of the mission of Captain Lewis's little army to carry

peace among these warring tribes. The nature of the expedition was

explained to their chiefs. At the great Council Bluffs many of the

Otoes came and promised to lay down the hatchet and cease to make war

against the Omahas. The Omahas, in turn, swore allegiance to the new

flag.

On ahead somewhere lay the powerful Sioux nation, doubt and dread of

all the traders who had ever passed up the Missouri. Dorion, the

interpreter, married among them, admitted that even he could not tell

what the Sioux might do.

The expedition struck camp at last, high up on the great river, in the

country of the Yanktonnais. The Sioux long had marked its coming, and

were ready for its landing. Their signal fires called in the villages

to meet the boats of the white men.

They came riding down in bands, whooping and shouting, painted and

half naked, well armed--splendid savages, fearing no man, proud,

capricious, blood-thirsty. They were curious as to the errand of

these new men who came carrying a new flag--these men who could make

the thunder speak. For now the heavy piece on the bow of the great

barge spoke in no uncertain terms so that its echoes ran back along

the river shores. No such boat, no such gun as this, had ever been

seen in that country before.

"Tell them to make a council, Dorion," said Lewis. "Take this

officer's coat to their head man. Tell him that the Great Father sends

it to him. Give him this hat with lace on it. Tell him that when we

are ready we may come to their council to meet their chiefs. Say that

only their real chiefs must come, for we will not treat with any but

their head men. If they wish to see us soon, let them come to our

village here."

"You are chiefs!" said Dorion. "Have I not seen it? I will tell them

so."

But Dorion had been gone but a short time when he came hurrying back

from the Indian village.

"The runners say plenty buffalo close by," he reported. "The chief,

she'll call the people to hunt the buffalo."

William Clark turned to his companion.

"You hear that, Merne?" said he. "Why should we not go also?"

"Agreed!" said Meriwether Lewis. "But stay, I have a thought. We will

go as they go and hunt as they do. To impress an Indian, beat him at

his own game. You and I must ride this day, Will!"

"Yes, and without saddles, too! Very well, I learned that of my

brother, who learned it of the Indians themselves. And I know you and

I both can shoot the bow as well as most Indians--that was part of our

early education. I might better have been in school sometimes, when I

was learning the bow."

"Dorion," said Lewis to the interpreter, "go back to the village and

tell their chief to send two bows with plenty of arrows. Tell them

that we scorn to waste any powder on so small a game as the buffalo.

On ahead are animals each one of which is as big as twenty buffalo--we

keep our great gun for those. As for buffalo, we kill them as the

Indians do, with the bow and with the spear. We shall want the

stiffest bows, with sinewed backs. Our arms are very strong."

Swift and wide spread the word among the Sioux that the white chiefs

would run the buffalo with their own warriors. Exclamations of

amusement, surprise, satisfaction, were heard. The white men should

see how the Sioux could ride. But Weucha, the head man, sent a

messenger with two bows and plenty of arrows--short, keen-pointed

arrows, suitable for the buffalo hunt, when driven by the stiff bows

of the Sioux.

"Strip, Will," said Meriwether Lewis. "If we ride as savages, it must

be in full keeping."

They did strip to the waist, as the savages always did when running

the buffalo--sternest of all savage sport or labor, and one of the

boldest games ever played by man, red or white. Clad only in leggings

and moccasins, their long hair tied in firm cues, when Weucha met them

he exclaimed in admiration. The village turned out in wonder to see

these two men whose skins were white, whose hair was not black, but

some strange new color--one whose hair was red.

The two young officers were not content with this. York, Captain

Clark's servant, rolling his eyes, showing his white teeth, was

ordered to strip up the sleeve of his shirt to show that his hide was

neither red nor white, but black--another wonder in that land!

"Now, York, you rascal," commanded William Clark, "do as I tell you!"

"Yessah, massa Captain, I suttinly will!"

"When I raise this flag, do you drop on the ground and knock your

forehead three times. Groan loud--groan as if you had religion, York!

Do you understand?"

"Yassah, massa Captain!"

York grinned his enjoyment; and when he had duly executed the

maneuver, the Sioux greeted the white men with much acclamation.

"I see that you are chiefs!" exclaimed Weucha. "You have many colors,

and your medicine is strong. Take, then, these two horses of

mine--they are good runners for buffalo--perhaps yours are not so

fast." Thus Dorion interpreted.

"Now," said Clark, "suppose I take the lance, Merne, and you handle

the bow. I never have tried the trick, but I believe I can handle this

tool."

He picked up and shook in his hand the short lance, steel-tipped,

which Weucha was carrying. The latter grinned and nodded his assent,

handing the weapon to the red-haired leader.

"Now we shall serve!" said Lewis an instant later; for they brought

out two handsome horses, one coal-black, the other piebald, both

mettlesome and high-strung.

That the young men were riders they now proved, for they mounted

alone, barebacked, and managed to control their mounts with nothing

but the twisted hide rope about the lower jaw--the only bridle known

among the tribes of the great plains.

The crier now passed down the village street, marshaling all the

riders for the chase. Weucha gave the signal to advance, himself

riding at the head of the cavalcade, with the two white captains at

his side--a picture such as any painter might have envied.

Others of the expedition followed on as might be--Shannon, Gass, the

two Fields boys, others of the better hunters of the Kentuckians. Even

York, not to be denied, sneaked in at the rear. They all rode quietly

at first, with no outcry, no sound save the steady tramp of the

horses.

Their course was laid back into the prairie for a mile or two before a

halt was called. Then the chief disposed his forces. The herd was

supposed to be not far away, beyond a low rim of hills. On this side

the men were ranged in line. A blanket waved from a point visible to

all was to be the signal for the charge.

Dorion, also stripped to the waist, a kerchief bound about his head,

carrying a short carbine against his thigh, now rode alongside.

"He say Weucha show you how Sioux can ride," he interpreted.

"Tell him it is good, Dorion," rejoined Lewis. "We will show him also

that we can ride!"

A shout came from the far edge of the restless ranks. A half-naked

rider waved a blanket. With shrill shouts the entire line broke at top

speed for the ridge.

Neither of the two young Americans had ever engaged in the sport of

running the buffalo; yet now the excitement of the scene caused both

to forget all else. They urged on their horses, mingling with the

savage riders.

The buffalo had been feeding less than a quarter of a mile away; the

wind was favorable, and they had not yet got scent of the approach;

but now, as the line of horsemen broke across the crest, the herd

streamed out and away from them--crude, huge, formless creatures, with

shaggy heads held low, their vast bulk making them seem almost like

prehistoric things. The dust of their going arose in a blinding cloud,

the thunder of their hoofs left inaudible even the shrill cries of the

riding warriors as they closed in.

The chase passed outward into an open plain, which lay white in

alkali. In a few moments the swift horses had carried the best of the

riders deep into the dust-cloud which arose. Each man followed some

chosen animal, doing his best to keep it in sight as the herd plowed

onward in the biting dust.

Here and there the vast, solid surface of a sea of rolling backs could

be glimpsed; again an opening into it might be seen close at hand. It

was bold work, and any who engaged in it took his chances.

Lewis found his horse, the black runner that Weucha had given him, as

swift as the best, and able to lay him promptly alongside his quarry.

At a distance of a few feet he drew back the sinewy string of the

tough Sioux bow, gripping his horse with his knees, swaying his body

out to the bow, as he well knew how. The shaft, discharged at a

distance of but half a dozen feet, sank home with a soft _zut_. The

stricken animal swerved quickly toward him, but his wary horse leaped

aside and went on. Such as the work had been, it was done for that

buffalo at least, and Lewis knew that he had caught the trick.

The black runner singled out another and yet another; and again and

again Lewis shot--until at last, his arrows nearly exhausted, after

two or three miles of mad speed, he pulled out of the herd and waited.

In the white dust-cloud, lifted now and then, he could see naked forms

swaying, bending forward, plying their weapons. Somewhere in the midst

of it, out in the ruck of hoof and horn, his friend was riding,

forgetting all else but the excitement of the chase. What if accident

had befallen either of them? Lewis could not avoid asking himself that

question.

Now the riders edged through the herd, outward, around its

flank--turned it, were crowding it back, milling and confused. Out of

the dust emerged two figures, naked, leaning forward to the leaping of

their horses. One was an Indian, his black locks flowing, his eyes

gleaming, his hand flogging his horse as he rode. The other was a

white man, his tall white body splashed with blood, his long red hair,

broken from his cue, on his shoulders.

The two were pursuing the same animal--a young bull, which thus far

had kept his distance some fifty yards or so ahead. But as Lewis

looked, both riders urged their horses to yet more speed. The piebald

of William Clark, well ridden, sprang away in advance and laid him

alongside of the quarry. Lewis himself saw the poised spear--saw it

plunge--saw the buffalo stumble in its stride--and saw his companion

pass on, whooping in exultation at Weucha, who came up an instant

later, defeated, but grinning and offering his hand. Now came Dorion

also, out of ammunition, yet not out of speech, excited, jabbering as

usual.

"Four nice cow I'll kill!" gabbled he. "I'll kill him four tam, bang,

bang! Plenty meat for my lodge now. How many you'll shot, Captain?" he

asked of Lewis.

"Plenty--you will find them back there."

Weucha, who came up after magnanimously shaking the hand of William

Clark, peered with curiosity into Lewis's almost empty quiver. He

smiled again, for that the white men had ridden well was obvious

enough. He called a young man to him, showed him the arrow-mark, and

sent him back to see how many of the dead buffalo showed arrows with

similar marks.

In time the messenger came back carrying a sheaf of arrows. Grinning,

he held up the fingers of two hands.

"Tell him that is nothing, Dorion," said Lewis. "We could have killed

many more if we had wished. We see that the Sioux can ride. Now, let

us see if they can talk at the council fire!"

The two leaders hastened to their own encampment to remove all traces

of the hunt. An hour later they emerged from their tents clad as

officers of the army, each in cocked hat and full uniform, with sword

at side.

With the fall of the sun, the drums sounded in the Indian village. The

criers passed along the street summoning the people to the feast,

summoning also the chiefs to the council lodge. Here the head men of

the village gathered, sitting about the little fire, the peace pipe

resting on a forked stick before them, waiting for the arrival of the

white chiefs--who could make the thunder come, who could make a strong

chief of black skin beat his head upon the ground; and who, moreover,

could ride stripped and strike the buffalo even as the Sioux.

The white leaders were in no haste to show themselves. They demanded

the full dignity of their station; but they came at last, their own

drum beating as they marched at the head of their men, all of whom

were in the uniform of the frontier.

York, selected as standard-bearer, bore the flag at the head of the

little band. Meriwether Lewis took it from him as they reached the

door of the council lodge, and thrust the staff into the soil, so that

it stood erect beside the lance and shield of Weucha, chief of the

Yanktonnais. Then, leaving their own men on guard without, the two

white chiefs stepped into the lodge, and, with not too much attention

to the chiefs sitting and waiting for them, took their own places in

the seat of honor. They removed their hats, shook free their

hair--which had been loosened from the cues; and so, in dignified

silence, not looking about them, they sat, their long locks spread out

on their shoulders.

Exclamations of excitement broke even from the dignified Sioux chiefs.

Clearly the appearance and the conduct of the two officers had made a

good impression. The circle eyed them with respect.

At length Meriwether Lewis, holding in his hand the great peace pipe

that he had brought, arose.

"Weucha," said he, Dorion interpreting for him, "you are head man of

the Yanktonnais. I offer you this pipe. Let us smoke. We are at peace.

We are children of the Great Father, and I do not bring war. I have

put a flag outside the lodge. It is your flag. You must keep it. Each

night you must take it down, roll it up, and put it in a parfleche, so

that it will not be torn or soiled. Whenever you have a great feast,

or meet other peoples, let it fly at your door. It is because you are

a chief that I give you this flag. I gave one to the Omahas, another

to the Otoes. Let there be no more war between you. You are under one

flag now.

"I give you this medal, Weucha, this picture on white iron. See, it

has the picture of the Great Father himself, my chief, who lives where

the sun rises. I also give you this writing, where I have made my

sign, and where the red-headed chief, my brother, has made his sign.

Keep these things, so that any who come here may know that you are our

friends, that you are the children of the Great Father.

"Weucha, they told us that the Sioux were bad in heart, that you would

say we could not go up the river. Our Great Father has sent us up the

river, and we must go. Tomorrow our boats must be on their course. If

the Great Father has such medicine as this I give you, do you think we

could go back to him and say the Sioux would not let us pass? You have

seen that we are not afraid, that we are chiefs--we can do what you

can do. Can you do what we can? Can you make the thunder come? Is

there any among you who has a black skin, like the man with us? Are

any of your men able to strike the eye of a deer, the head of a

grouse, at fifty paces with the rifle? All of my men can do that.

"I give you these presents--these lace coats for your great men, these

hats also, such as we wear, because you are our brothers, and are

chiefs. A little powder, a few balls, I give you, because we think you

want them. I give you a little tobacco for your pipes. If my words

sound good in your ears, I will send a talking paper to the Great

Father, and tell him that you are his children."

Deep-throated exclamations of approval met this speech. Weucha took

the pipe. He arose himself, a tall and powerful man, splendidly clad

in savage fashion, and spoke as the born leader that he also was. He

pledged the loyalty of the Sioux and the freedom of the river.

"I give you the horse you rode this morning," said Weucha to

Lewis, "the black runner. To you, red-haired chief, I give the

white-and-black horse that you rode. It is well that chiefs like

you should have good horses.

"Tomorrow our people will go a little way with you up the river. We

want you for our friends, for we know your medicine is strong. We know

that when we show this flag to other tribes--to the Otoes, the Omahas,

the Osages--they will fall on the ground and knock their heads on the

ground, as the black man did when the red-headed chief raised it above

him.

"The Great Father has sent us two chiefs who are young but very wise.

They can strike the buffalo. They can speak at the council. Weucha,

the Yanktonnais, says that they may go on. We know you will not lose

the trail. We know that you will come back. You are chiefs!"