THE MYSTERIOUS LETTER
Late in the night the Yanktonnais drums still sounded, long after a
dozen Sioux had spoken, and after the two white chieftains had arisen
and left the council fire. The people of the village were feasting
around half a hundred fires. The village was joyous, light-hearted,
and free of care. The hunt had been successful.
"Look at them, Will," said Meriwether Lewis, as they paused at the
edge of the bluff and turned back for a last glimpse at the savage
scene. "They are like children. I swear, I almost believe their lot in
life is happier than our own!"
"Tut, tut, Merne--moralizing again?" laughed William Clark, the
light-hearted. "Come now, help me get my eelskin about my hair. We may
need this red mane of mine further up the river. I trust to take it
back home with me, after all, now that we seem safe to pass these
Sioux without a fight. I am happy enough that our business today has
come out so well. I am a bit tired, and an old bull gave me a smash
with his horn this morning; so I am ready to turn into my blankets.
Are all the men on the roll tonight?"
"Sergeant Ordway reports Shannon still absent. It seems he went out on
the hunt this morning, and has not yet come back. I'll wait up a time,
I think, Will, to see if he comes in. It is rather a wild business for
a boy to lie out all night in such a country, with only the wolves for
company. Go you to your blankets, as you say. For me, I might be a
better sleeper than I am."
"Yes, that is true," rejoined Will Clark, rubbing his bruised leg. "It
is beginning to show on you, too, Merne. Isn't it enough to be
astronomer and doctor and bookkeeper and record-keeper and all that?
No, you think not--you must sit up all night by your little fire under
the stars and think and think. Oh, I have seen you, Merne! I have seen
you sitting there when you should have been sleeping. Do you call that
leadership, Captain Lewis? The men are under you, and if the leader is
not fit, the men are not. Now, a human body will stand only so
much--or a human mind, either, Merne. There is a limit to effort and
endurance."
His friend turned to him seriously.
"You are right, Will," said he. "I owe duty to many besides myself."
"You take things too hard, Merne. You cannot carry the whole world on
your shoulders. Look now, I have not been so blind as not to see that
something is going wrong with you. Merne, you are ill, or will be.
Something is wrong!"
His companion made no reply. They marched on to their own part of the
encampment, and seated themselves at the little fire which had been
left burning for them.[4]
[Footnote 4: The original journals of these two astonishing young
men--one of them just thirty years old, the other thirty-four--should
rank among the epic literature of the world. Battered about,
scattered, separated, lost, hawked from hand to hand, handed down as
unvalued heritages, "edited" first by this and then by that little
man, sometimes to the extent of actual mutilation or alteration of
their text--the journals of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark hold
their ineffacable clarity in spite of all. Their most curious quality
is the strange blending of two large souls which they show. It was
only by studying closely the individual differences of handwriting,
style, and spelling, that it could be determined what was the work of
Lewis, which that done by Clark.
And what a labor! After long days of toil and danger, under unvarying
hardships, in conditions of extremest discomfort and inconvenience for
such work, the two young leaders set down with unflagging faithfulness
countless thousands of details, all in such fashion as showed the
keenest and most exact powers of observation. Botanists, naturalists,
geographers, map-makers, builders, engineers, hunters, journalists,
they brought back in their notebooks a mass of information never
equaled by the records of any other party of explorers.
We cannot overestimate the sum of labor which all this meant, day
after day, month after month; nor should we underestimate the
qualities of mind and education demanded of them, nor the varied
experience of life in primitive surroundings which needed to be part
of their requisite equipment. It was indeed as if the two friends were
fitted by the plan of Providence for this great enterprise which they
concluded in such simple, unpretending, yet minutely thorough fashion.
Neither thought himself a hero, therefore each was one. The largest
glory to be accorded them is that they found their ambition and their
content in the day's work well done.]
William Clark went on with his reproving.
"Tell me, Merne, what are you thinking of? It is not that woman?"
He seemed to feel the sudden shrinking of the tall figure at his side.
"I have touched you on the raw once more, haven't I, Merne?" he
exclaimed. "I never meant to. I only want to see you happy."
"You must not be too uneasy, Will," returned Meriwether Lewis, at
last. "It is only that sometimes at night I lie awake and ponder over
things. And the nights themselves are wonderful!"
"Saw you ever such nights, Merne, in all your life? Breathed you ever
such air as these plains carry in the nighttime? Why do you not
exult--what is it you cannot forget? You don't really deceive me,
Merne. What is it that you _see_ when you lie awake at night under the
stars? Some face, eh? What, Merne? You mean to tell me you are still
so foolish? We left three months ago. I gave you two months for
forgetting her--and that is enough! Come, now, perhaps some maid of
the Mandans, on ahead, will prove fair enough to pipe to you, or to
touch the bull-hide tambourine in such fashion as to charm you from
your sorrows! No, don't be offended--it is only that I want to tell
you not to take that old affair too hard. And now, it is time for you
to turn in."
William Clark himself arose and strolled to his own blanket-roll,
spread it out, and lay down beneath the sky to sleep. Meriwether Lewis
sought to follow his example, and spread open his robe and blankets
close to the fire. As he leaned back, he felt something hard and
crackling under his hand, and looked down.
It was his custom to carry in his blankets, for safekeeping, his long
spyglass, a pair of dry moccasins and a buckskin tunic. These articles
were here, as he expected to find them. Yet here among them was a
folded and sealed envelope--a letter! He had not placed it here; yet
here it was.
He caught it up in his hand, looked at it wonderingly, kicked the ends
of the embers together so that they flamed up, bent forward to read
the superscription--and paused in amazement. Well enough he knew the
firm, upright, characterful hand which addressed this missive to him:
TO CAPTAIN MERIWETHER LEWIS.--ON THE TRAIL IN THE WEST.
A feeling somewhat akin to awe fell upon Meriwether Lewis. He felt a
cold prickling along his spine. It was for him, yes--but whence had it
come? There had been no messenger from outside the camp. For one brief
instant it seemed, indeed, as if this bit of paper--which of all
possible gifts of the gods he would most have coveted--had dropped
from the heavens themselves at his feet here in the savage wilderness.
His heart had been on the point of breaking, it seemed to him--and it
had come to comfort him! It was from her. It ran thus:
DEAR SIR AND FRIEND:
Greetings to you, wherever you may be when this shall find
you. Are you among the Gauls, the Goths, the Visigoths, the
Huns, the Vandals, or the Cimbri? Wherever you be, our
hopes and faith go with you. You are, as I fancy, in a
desert, a wilderness, worth no man's owning. Life passes
meantime. To what end, my friend?
I fancy you in the deluge, in the hurricane, in the blaze of
the sun, or in the bleak winds, alone, cheerless, perhaps
athirst, perhaps knowing hunger. I know that you will meet
these things like a man. But to what end--what is the
purpose of all this? You have left behind you all that makes
life worth while--fortune, fame, life, ambition, honor--to
go away into the desert. At what time are you going to turn
back and come to us once more?
Oh, if only I had the right--if only I dared--if only I were
in a position to lay some command on you to bring you back!
Methinks then I would. You could do so much for us all--so
much for me. It would mean so much to my own happiness if
you were here.
Meriwether Lewis, come back! You have gone far enough. On
ahead are only cruel hardship and continual failure. Here
are fortune, fame, wealth, ambition, honor--and more. I told
you one time I would lay my hand upon your shoulder out
yonder, no matter where you were. I said that you should
look into my face yonder when you sat alone beside your fire
under the stars. You said that it would be torment. I said
that none the less I would not let you go. I said my face
still should stay with you, until you were willing to turn
back.
Turn back _now_, Meriwether Lewis! Come back!
The letter was not signed, and needed not to be. Meriwether Lewis sat
staring at the paper clutched in his hand.
Her face! Ah, did he not see it now? Was it not true what she had
said? He saw her face now--but not smiling, happy, contented, as it
once had been. No, he saw it pale and in distress. He saw tears in her
eyes. And she had written him:
Oh, if only I had the right to lay some command on you!
Was not he, who had forgotten honor, subject now to any command that
she might give him?
"Will, Will!" exclaimed Meriwether Lewis, sharply, imperatively, to
his friend, whom he could see dimly at a little distance as he lay.
The long figure in its robes straightened quickly, for by day or night
William Clark was instantly ready for any sudden alarm. He started up
on his robe, with his hand on his rifle.
"Who calls there? Who goes?" he cried, half awake.
"It is I, Will," said Meriwether Lewis, advancing toward him.
"Listen--tell me, Will, why did you do this?"
"Why did I do what? Merne, what is wrong?"
Clark was now on his feet, and Lewis held out the letter to him. He
took it in his hand, looked at it wonderingly.
"This letter----" began Meriwether Lewis. "Certainly you carried it
for me--why did you not bring it to me long ago?"
"What letter? Whose letter is it, Merne? I never saw it before. What
is it you are saying? Are you mad?"
"I think so," said Lewis, "I think I must be. Here is a letter--I
found it but now in my bed. I thought perhaps you had had it for me a
long time, and placed it there as a surprise."
"Who sends it, Merne. What does it say?"
"It is from the woman whose face I have seen at night, Will. She asks
me to come back!"
"Burn it--throw it in the fire!" said William Clark sharply. "Go back?
What, forsake Mr. Jefferson--leave me?"
"God forgive me, Will, but you search my very heart! For one moment I
was on the point of declaring myself too ill to finish this
journey--on the point of letting you have all the honor of it. I was
going to surrender my place to you."
"You cannot desert us, Merne! You shall not! Go back to bed! Give me
the letter! Bah! it is some counterfeit, some trick of one of the
men!"
"It would be worth any man's life to try a jest like that," said
Meriwether Lewis. "It is no counterfeit. I know it too well. This
letter was written before we left St. Louis. How it came here I know
not, but I know who wrote it."
"She had no right----"
"Ah, but that is the cruelty of it--she _did_ have the right!"
"There are some things which a man must work out for himself," said
William Clark slowly, after a time. "I don't think I'll ask any
questions. If there is any place where I can take half your burden,
you know what I will do. We've worked share and share alike, but
perhaps some things cannot be shared, even by you and me. It is for
you to tell me if I can help you now. If not, then you must decide."
Even as he spoke, his beloved friend was turning away from him.
Meriwether Lewis walked out alone into the night. Stumbling, he passed
on out among the shadows, under the starlight. Without much plan, he
found himself on a little eminence of the bluff near by.
He sat down, his blanket drawn over his head, like an Indian,
motionless, thinking, fighting out his own fight, as sometimes a man
must, alone. He did not know that William Clark, most faithful of
friends, himself silent as a Sioux, had followed, and sat a little
distance apart, his eyes fixed on the motionless figure outlined
against the sky.
The dawn came at last and kindled a red band along the east. The gray
light at length grew more clear. A coyote on the bluff raised a long
and quavering cry, like some soul in torture. As if it were his own
voice, Meriwether Lewis stirred, rose, drew back the blanket from his
shoulders, and turned down the hill.
He saw his friend rising and advancing to him. Once more their hands
gripped, as they had when the two first met on the Ohio, almost a year
ago, at the beginning of their journey.
Lewis frowned heavily. He could not speak for a time.
"Give the orders to the men to roll out, Captain Clark," said he at
length.
"Which way, Captain Lewis--upstream or down?"
"The expedition will go forward, Captain Clark."
"God bless you, Merne!" said the red-headed one.