THE ABYSS
The little Indian dog sat on the table, silent, motionless, looking at
its master, whose head was bowed upon his arms. Now and then it had
stooped as if it would have looked in his face, but dared not, if for
very excess of love. It turned an inquiring eye to the door, which,
after a time, opened.
William Clark, silent, stood once more at the side of his friend. He
looked on the sad and haggard face which was turned toward him, and
fell back. His eye caught sight of the folded paper crushed between
Lewis's fingers. He asked no questions, but he knew.
"Enough!" broke out Meriwether Lewis hoarsely. "No more of this--we
must be gone! Are the men ready? Why do we delay? Why are we not away
for the journey home?"
So impatient, so incoherent, did his speech seem that for a time Clark
almost feared lest his friend's reason might have been affected. But
he only stood looking at Lewis, ready to be of such aid as might be.
"In two hours, Merne," said he, "we will be on our way."
It was now near the end of March. They dated and posted up their
bulletins. They had done their task. They had found the great river,
they had found the sea, they had mapped the way across the new
continent. Their glorious work had gloriously been done.
Such was their joy at starting home again, the boatmen disregarded the
down-coming current of the great waters--they sang at the paddles,
jested. Only their leader was silent and unsmiling, and he drove them
hard. Short commons they knew often enough before they reached the
mouth of the Walla Walla, where they found friendly Indians who gave
them horse meat--which seemed exceedingly good food.
The Nez Percés, whose country was reached next beyond the Walla
Wallas, offered guides across the Bitter Roots, but now the snow lay
deep, the horses could not travel. For weeks they lay in camp on the
Kooskooskie, eating horse meat as the Indians then were doing,
waiting, fretting.
It was the middle of June before they made the effort to pass the
Bitter Roots. Sixty horses they had now, with abundance of jerked
horse meat, and a half-dozen Nez Percés guides. By the third of
July--just three years from the date of the Louisiana Purchase as it
was made known at Mr. Jefferson's simplicity dinner--they were across
the Bitter Roots once more, in the pleasant valleys of the eastern
slope.
"That way," said Sacajawea, pointing, "big falls!"
She meant the short cut across the string of the bow, which would lead
over the Continental Divide direct to the Great Falls of the Missouri.
Both the leaders had pondered over this short cut, which the Nez
Percés knew well.
"We must part, Will," said Meriwether Lewis. "It is our duty to learn
all we can of this wonderful country. I will take the Indian trail
straight across. Do you go on down the way we came. Pick up our caches
above the three forks of the Missouri, and then cross over the
mountains to the Yellowstone. Make boats there, and come on down to
the mouth of that river. You should precede me there, perhaps, by some
days. Wait then until I come."
With little more ado these self-reliant men parted in the middle of
the vast mountain wilderness. They planned a later junction of their
two parties at the mouth of a river which then was less known than the
Columbia had been, through a pass which none of them had ever seen.
Lewis had with him nine men, among them Sergeant Gass, the two Fields
boys, Drouillard and Cruzatte, the voyageurs. Sacajawea, in spite of
her protest, remained with the Clark party, where her wonderful
knowledge of the country again proved invaluable. This band advanced
directly to the southward by easy and pleasant daily stages.
"That way short path over mountains," said Sacajawea at length, at one
point of their journey.
She pointed out the Big Hole Trail and what was later known as Clark's
Pass over the Continental Divide. They came to a new country, a
beautiful valley where the grass was good; but Sacajawea still pointed
onward.
"That way," said she, "find boat, find cache!"
She showed them another gap in the hills, as yet unknown; and so led
them out by a short cut directly to the caches on the Jefferson!
But they could not tarry long. Boots and saddles again, pole and
paddle also, for now some of the men must take to the boats while
others brought on the horses. At the Three Forks rendezvous they made
yet other changes, for here the boats must be left. Captain Clark must
cross the mountain range to the eastward to find the Yellowstone, of
which the Indian girl had told him. Yonder, she said, not quite a full
day's march through a notch in the lofty mountains, they would come to
the river, which ran off to the east.
Not one of them had ever heard of that gap in the hills; there was no
one to guide them through it except the Indian girl, whose memory had
hitherto been so positive and so trustworthy. They trusted her
implicitly.
"That way!" she said.
Always she pointed on ahead confidently; and always she was right. She
was laying out the course of a railroad which one day should come up
the Yellowstone and cross here to the Missouri.
They found it to be no more than eighteen or twenty miles, Sacajawea's
extraordinary short cut between the Missouri and the Yellowstone. They
struck the latter river below the mouth of its great cañon, found good
timber, and soon were busy felling great cottonwoods to make dugout
canoes. Two of these, some thirty feet in length, when lashed side by
side, served to carry all their goods and some of their party. The
rest--Pryor, Shannon, Hall and one or two others--were to come on down
with the horses.
The mounted men did well enough until one night the Crows stole all
their horses, and left them on foot in the middle of the wilderness.
Not daunted, they built themselves boats of bull hide, as they had
seen Indians do, and soon they followed on down the river, they could
not tell how far, to the rear of the main boat party. With the
marvelous good fortune which attended the entire expedition, they had
no accident; and in time they met the other explorers at the mouth of
the Yellowstone, after traveling nine hundred miles on a separate
voyage of original discovery!
It was on the eighth of August that the last of Clark's boats arrived
at the Yellowstone rendezvous. His men felt now as if they were almost
at home. The Mandan villages were not far below. As soon as Captain
Lewis should come, they would be on their way, rejoicing. Patient,
hardy, uncomplaining, they did not know that they were heroes.
What of Lewis, then gone so long? He and his men were engaged in the
yet more dangerous undertaking of exploring the country of the dreaded
Blackfeet, known to bear arms obtained from the northern traders. They
reached the portage of the Great Falls without difficulty, and eagerly
examined the caches which they had left there. Now they were to divide
their party.
"Sergeant Gass," said Captain Lewis, "I am going to leave you here.
You will get the baggage and the boats below the falls, and take
passage on down the river. Six of you can attend to that. I shall take
Drouillard and the Fields boys with me, and strike off toward the
north and east, where I fancy I shall find the upper portion of
Maria's River. When you come to the mouth of that river--which you
will remember some of you held to be the real Missouri--you will go
into camp and wait for us. You will remain there until the first day
of September. If by that time we have not returned, you will pass on
down the Missouri to Captain Clark's camp, at the mouth of the
Yellowstone, and go home with him. By that time it will have become
evident that we shall not return. I plan to meet you at the mouth of
Maria's River somewhere about the beginning of August."
They parted, and it was almost by a miracle that they ever met again;
for now the perils of the wilderness asserted themselves even against
the marvelous good fortune which had thus far attended them.
Hitherto, practically all the tribes met had been friendly, but now
they were in the country of the dreaded Blackfeet, who by instinct and
training were hostile to all whites coming in from the south and east.
A party of these warriors was met on the second day of their
northbound journey from the Missouri River. Lewis gave the Indians
such presents as he could, and, as was his custom, told them of his
purpose in traveling through the country. He showed no fear of them,
although he saw his own men outnumbered ten to one. The two parties,
the little band of white men and the far more numerous band of
Blackfeet, lay down to sleep that night in company.
But the Blackfeet were unable to resist the temptation to attain
sudden wealth by seizing the horses and guns of these strangers.
Toward dawn Lewis himself, confident in the integrity of his guests,
and dozing for a time, felt the corner of his robe pulled, felt
something spring on his face, heard a noise. His little dog was
barking loudly, excitedly.
He was more fully awakened by the sound of a shout, and then by a
shot. Springing from his robes, he saw Drouillard and both of the
Fields boys on their feet, struggling with the savages, who were
trying to wrench their rifles from them.
"Curse you, turn loose of me!" cried Reuben Fields.
He fought for a time longer with his brawny antagonist, till he saw
others coming. Then his hand went to the long knife at his belt, and
the next instant the Blackfoot lay dead at his feet.
Drouillard wrenched his rifle free and stood off his man for a moment,
shouting all the time to his leader that the Indians were trying to
get the horses. Lewis saw the thieves tugging at the picket-ropes, and
hastened into the fray, cursing himself for his own credulity. A giant
Blackfoot engaged him, bull-hide shield advanced, battle-ax whirling;
but wresting himself free, Lewis fired point-blank into his body, and
another Indian fell dead.
The Blackfeet found they had met their match. They dropped the
picket-ropes and ran as fast as they could, jumped into the river,
swam across, and so escaped, leaving the little party of whites
unhurt, but much disturbed.
"Mount, men! Hurry!" Lewis ordered.
As quickly as they could master the frightened horses, his men obeyed.
With all thought of further exploration ended, they set out at top
speed, and rode all that day and night as fast as the horses could
travel. They had made probably one hundred and twenty miles when at
length they came to the mouth of the Maria's River, escaped from the
most perilous adventure any of them had had.
Here again, by that strange good fortune which seemed to guide them,
they arrived just in time to see the canoes of Gass and his men coming
down the Missouri. These latter had made the grand portage at the
falls, had taken up all the caches, and had brought the contents with
them. The stars still fought for the Volunteers for the Discovery of
the West.
There was no time to wait. The Blackfeet would be coming soon. Lewis
abandoned his horses here. The entire party took to the boats, and
hurried down the river as fast as they could, paddling in relays, day
and night. Gaunt, eager, restless, moody, silent, their leader neither
urged his men nor chided them, nor did he refer to the encounter with
the Blackfeet. He did not need to, with Drouillard to describe it to
them all a dozen times.
At times it was necessary for the boats to stop for meat, usually a
short errand in a country alive with game; and, as was his custom,
Lewis stepped ashore one evening to try for a shot at some near by
game--elk, buffalo, antelope, whatever offered. He had with him
Cruzatte, the one-eyed Frenchman. It was now that fortune frowned
ominously almost for the first time.
The two had not been gone more than a few minutes when the men
remaining at the boat heard a shot--then a cry, and more shouting.
Cruzatte came running back to them through the bushes, calling out at
the top of his voice:
"The captain! I've keeled him--I've keeled the captain--I've shot
him!"
"What is that you're saying?" demanded Patrick Gass. "If you've done
that, you would be better dead yourself!"
He reached out, caught Cruzatte's rifle, and flung it away from him.
"Where is he?" he demanded.
Cruzatte led the way back.
"I see something move on the bushes," said he, "and I shoot. It was
not elk--it was the captain. _Mon Dieu_, what shall we do?"
They found Captain Lewis sitting up, propped against a clump of
willows, his legging stripped to the thigh. He was critically
examining the path of the bullet, which had passed through the limb.
At seeing him still alive, his men gave a shout of joy, and Cruzatte
received a parting kick from his sergeant.
There were actual tears in the eyes of some of the men as they
gathered around their commander--tears which touched Meriwether Lewis
deeply.
"It is all right, men!" said he. "Do not be alarmed. Do not reprove
the man too much. The sight of a little blood should not trouble you.
We are all soldiers. This is only an accident of the trail, and in a
short time it will be mended. See, the bone is not broken!"
They aided him back to the boats and made a bed upon which he might
lie, his head propped up so that he could see what lay ahead. Other
men completed the evening hunt, and the boats hurried on down the
river. The next day found them fifty miles below the scene of the
accident.
"Sergeant," said Meriwether Lewis, "the natural fever of my wound is
coming on. Give me my little war-sack yonder--I must see if I can find
some medicine."
Gass handed him his bag of leather, and Lewis sought in it for a
moment. His hand encountered something that crinkled in the
touch--crinkled familiarly! For one instant he stopped, his lips
compressed as if in bodily pain.
It was another of the mysterious letters!
Before he opened it, he looked at it, frowning, wondering. Whence came
these messages, and how, by whose hand? All of them must have been
written before he left St. Louis in May of 1804. Now it was August of
1806. There was no human agency outside his own party that could have
carried them. How had they reached him? What messenger had brought
them? He forgot the fever of his wound in another and greater fever
which arose in his blood.
He was with his men now, their eyes were on him all the time. What
should he do--cast this letter from him into the river? If he did so,
he felt that it would follow him mysteriously, pointing to the _corpus
delicti_ of his crime, still insistent on coming to the eye!
His men, therefore, saw their leader casually open a bit of paper.
They had seen him do such things a thousand times, since journals and
maps were a part of the daily business of so many of them. What he did
attracted no attention.
Captain Lewis would have felt relieved had it attracted more. Before
he read any of the words that lay before him, in this same delicate
handwriting that he knew so well, he cast a slow and searching gaze
upon the face of every man that was turned toward him. In fact, he
held the letter up to view rather ostentatiously, hoping that it would
evoke some sign; but he saw none.
He had not been in touch with the main party for more than a month. He
had with him nine men. Which of these had secretly carried the letter?
Was it Gass, Cruzatte, Drouillard, Reuben Fields, or McNeal?
He studied their faces alternately. Not an eyelash flickered. The men
who looked at him were anxious only for his comfort. There was no
trace of guilty knowledge on any of these honest countenances before
him, and he who sought such admitted his own failure. Meriwether Lewis
lay back on his couch in the boat, as far as ever from his solution of
the mystery.
After all, mere curiosity as to the nature of that mystery was a small
matter. It seemed of more worth to feel, as he did, that the woman
who had planned this system of surprises for him was one of no
ordinary mind. And it was no ordinary woman who had written the words
that he now read:
SIR AND MY FRIEND:
Almost I am in despair. This is my fifth letter; you receive
it, perhaps, some months after your start. I think you would
have come back before now, if that had been possible. I had
no news of you, and now I dread news. Should you still be
gone a year from the time I write this, then I shall know
that you were dead. Dead? Yes, I have written that word!
The swift thought comes to me that you will never see this
at all--that it may, it must, arrive too late. Yet I must
send it, even under that chance. I must write it, though it
ruin all my happiness. Shall it come to you too late, others
will take it to my husband. Then this secret--the one secret
of my life--will be known. Ah, I hope this may come to your
eyes, your living eyes; but should it not, _none the less I
must write it_.
What matter? If it should be read by any after your death,
that would be too late to make difference with you, or any
difference for me. After that I should not care for
anything--not even that then others would know what I would
none might ever know save you and my Creator, so long as we
both still lived.
This wilderness which you love, the wilderness to which you
fled for your comfort--what has it done for you? Have you
found that lonely grave which is sometimes the reward of the
adventurer thither? If so, do you sleep well? I shall envy
you, if that is true. I swear I often would let that thought
come to me--of the vast comfort of the plains, of the
mountains--the sweep of the untiring winds, sweet in the
trees and grasses--or the perpetual sound of water passing
by, washing out, to the voice of its unending murmurs, all
memory of our trials, of our sins.
What need now to ask you to come back? What need to reproach
you any further? How could I--how can I--with this terrible
thought in my soul that I am writing to a man whose eyes
cannot see, whose ears cannot hear?
Still, what difference, whether or not you be living? Have
not your eyes thus far been blind to me? Have not your ears
been deaf to me, even when I spoke to you direct? It was the
call of your country as against my call. Was ever thinking
woman who could doubt what a strong man would do? I suppose
I ought to have known. But oh, the longing of a woman to
feel that she is something greater in a man's life even than
his deeds and his ambitions--even than his labors--even than
his patriotism!
It is hard for us to feel that we are but puppets in the
great game of life, of so small worth to any man. How can we
women read their hearts--what do we know of men? I cannot
say, though I am a married woman. My husband married me. We
had our honeymoon--and he went away about the business of
his plantations. Does every girl dream of a continuous
courtship and find a dull answer in the facts? I do not
know.
How freely I write to you, seeing that you are blind and
deaf, of that wish of a woman to be the one grand passion of
a strong man's life--above all--before even his country!
What may once have been my own dream of my capacity to evoke
such emotions in the soul of any man I have flung into the
scrap-heap of my life. The man, the one man--no! What was I
saying, Meriwether Lewis, to you but now, even though you
were blind and deaf? I must not--I _must_ not!
Nay, let me dream no more! It is too late now. Living or
dead, you are deaf and blind to all that I could ever do for
you. But if you be still living, if this shall meet your
living eyes, however cold and clear they may be, please,
please remember it was not for myself alone that I took on
the large ambitions of which I have spoken to you, the large
risks engaged with them. Nay, do not reproach me; leave me
my woman's right to make all the reproaches. I only wanted
to do something for you.
I have not written so freely to any man in all my life. I
could not do so now did I not feel in some strange way that
by this time--perhaps at this very time--you are either dead
or in some extreme of peril. If I _knew_ that you would see
this, I could not write it. As it is, it gives me some
relief--it is my confessional. How often does a woman ever
confess her own, her inner and real heart? Never, I think,
to any man--certainly not to any living, present man.
I married; yes. It seemed the ordinary and natural thing to
do, a useful, necessary, desirable thing to do. I should not
complain--I did that with my eyes well opened and with full
counsel of my father. My eyes well opened, but my heart well
closed! I took on my duties as one of the species human, my
duties as wife, as head of a household, as lady of a certain
rank. I did all that, for it is what most women would do. It
is the system of society. My husband is content.
What am I writing now? Arguing, justifying, defending? Ah,
were it possible that you would read this and come back to
me, never, never, though it killed me, would I open my heart
to you! I write only to a dead man, I say--to one who can
never hear. I write once more to a man who set other things
above all that I could have done. Deeds, deeds, what you
call your country--your own impulses--these were the things
you placed above me. You placed above me this adventuring
into the wilderness. Yes, I know what are the real impulses
in your man's life. I know what you valued above me.
But you are dead! While you lived, I hoped your conscience
was clean. I hope that never once have you descended to any
conduct not belonging to Meriwether Lewis of Virginia. I
know that no matter what temptation was yours, you would
remember that I was Mrs. Alston--and that you were
Meriwether Lewis of Virginia.
Nay, I _cannot_ stop! How can you mind my garrulous pen--my
vain pen--my wicked, wicked, wicked, shameful pen--since you
cannot see what it says?
Ah, I had so hoped once more to see you before it was too
late! Should this not reach you, and should it reach others,
why, let it go to all the world that Theodosia Burr that
was, Mrs. Alston of Carolina that is, once ardently
importuned a man to join her in certain plans for the
betterment of his fortunes as well as her own; and that you
did not care to share in those plans! So I failed. And
further--let that also go out to the world--I glory in the
truth _that I have failed_!
Yes, that at last is the truth at the bottom of my heart! I
have searched it to the bottom, and I have found the truth.
I glory in the truth that you have _not_ come back to me.
There--have I not said all that a woman could say to a man,
living or dead?
Just as strongly as I have urged you to return, just as
strongly I have hoped that you would not return! In my soul
I wanted to see you go on in your own fashion, following
your own dreams and caring not for mine. That was the
Meriwether Lewis I had pictured to myself. I shall glory in
my own undoing, if it has meant your success.
Holding to your own ambition, keeping your own loyalty,
holding your own counsel and your own speech to the
end--pushing on through everything to what you have set out
to do--that is the man I could have loved! Deeds, deeds,
high accomplishments--these in truth are the things which
are to prevail. The selfish love of success as success--the
love of ease, of money, of power--these are the things women
covet _from_ a man--yes, but they are not the things a woman
_loves in_ a man. No; it is the stiff-necked man, bound in
his own ambition, whom women love, even as they swear they
do not.
_Therefore, do not come back to me_, Meriwether Lewis! Do
not come--forget all that I have said to you before--do not
return until you have done your work! Do not come back to me
until you can come content. Do not come to me with your
splendid will broken. Let it triumph even over the will of a
Burr, not used to yielding, not easily giving up anything
desired.
This is almost the last letter I shall ever write to any man
in all my life. I wonder who will read it--you, or all the
world, perhaps! I wish it might rest with you at the last.
Oh, let this thought lie with you as you sleep--you did not
come back to me, _and I rejoiced that you did not_!
Tell me, why is it that I think of you lying where the wind
is sweet in the trees? Why is it that I think of myself,
too, lying at last, with all my doubts composed, all my
restless ambitions ended, all my foolish dreams answered--in
some place where the sound of the unceasing waters shall
wash out from the memory of the world all my secrets and all
my sins? Always I hear myself crying:
"I hope I shall not be unhappy, for I do not feel that I
have been bad."
Adieu, Meriwether Lewis, adieu! I am glad you can never read
this. I am glad that you have not come back. I am glad that
I have failed!