The Magnificent Adventure - Emerson Hough (fiction books to read .txt) 📗
- Author: Emerson Hough
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Lewis himself, weak from toil, fell ill on the way, but still he would not stop. He came to a point from which he could see the mountains plainly on ahead. The river was narrow, flowing through a cañon.
The next day they came to the foot of the Great Falls of the Missouri, alone, majestic here in the wilderness, soundless save for their own dashing—those wonderful cascades, now so well known in industry, so nearly forgotten in history.
“The girl was right—this is the river!” said Lewis to his men. “It comes from the mountains. We are right!”
Cascade after cascade, rapid after rapid, he pushed on to the head of the great drop of the Missouri, where it plunges down from its upper valley for its long journey through the vast plains.
Now word went down to the mouth of Maria’s River; but the messenger met Clark already toiling upward with his boats, for he had guessed the cause of delay, and at last believed Sacajawea.
“Make some boat-trucks, Will,” said Lewis, when at last they were all encamped at the foot of the falls. “We shall have to portage twenty miles of falls and rapids.”
And William Clark, the ever-ready engineer, who always had a solution for any problem in mechanics or in geography, went to work upon the hardest task in transportation they yet had had.
“We must leave more plunder here, Merne,” said he. “We can’t get into the mountains with all this.”
So again they cached some of their stores. They buried here the great swivel piece which had “made the thunder” among so many savage tribes. Also there were stored here the spring’s collection of animals and minerals, certain books and maps not needed, and the great grindstone which had come all the way from Harper’s Ferry. They were stripping for their race.
It took the party a full month to make the portage. They were worn to the bone by the hard labor, scorched by the sun, and frozen by the night winds.
“We must go on!” was always the cry.
All felt that the summer was going; none knew what might be on ahead.
At the cost of greater and greater toil they pushed on up their river above the falls, until presently its course bent off to the south again. They passed through a country of such wealth as none of them had ever dreamed of, but they did not suspect the hidden treasures of gold and silver which lay so close to them on the floor of the mountain valleys. What interested them more was the excitement of Sacajawea, who from time to time pointed out traces of human occupancy.
“My people here!” said she, and pointed to camp-fires. “Plenty people come here. Heap hunt buffalo!” She pointed out the trails made by the lodge-poles.
“She knows, Will!” said Lewis, once more. “We have a guide even here. We are the luckiest of men!”
“Soon we come where three rivers,” said Sacajawea one day. They had passed to the south and west through the first range of mountains—through that Gate of the Mountains near to the rich gold fields of the future State of Montana. “By and by, three rivers—I know!”
And it was as she had said. The men, wearied to the limit by the toil of getting the boats upstream by line and setting pole, at last found their mountain river broken into three separate streams.
“We will camp here,” said the leader. “We are tired, we have worked long and hard!”
“My people come here,” said Sacajawea, “plenty time. Here the Minnetarees struck my people—five snows ago that was. They caught me and took me with them, so I find Charbonneau among the Mandans. Here my people live!”
Without hesitation she pointed out that one of the three forks of the Missouri which led off to the westward—the one that Meriwether Lewis called the Jefferson.
And now every man in the party felt that they were on the right path as they turned into that stream; but at the Beaver Head Rock—well known to all the Indians—they went into camp once more.
“Captains make medicine now,” said Sacajawea to Charbonneau, her husband.
For once more the captains hesitated. There were many passes, many valleys, many trails. Which was the way? The men grew sullen again.
They lay in camp for days, sending out parties, feeling out the way; but the explorers always came back uncertain. It was Clark who led these scouting parties now, for Lewis was well-nigh broken down in health.
One night, alone, the leader sat by his little fire, thinking, thinking, as so often he did now. The stars, unspeakably brilliant, lit up the wild scene about him. This was the wilderness! He had sought it all his life. All his life it had called to him aloud. What had it done for him, after all? Had it taught him to forget?
Two years now had passed, and still he saw a face which would not go away. Still there arose before him the same questions whose debate had torn his soul, worn out his body, through these weary months.
“You will be cold, sir,” said one of the men solicitously, as he passed on his way to guard mount. “Shall I fetch your coat?”
Lewis thanked him, and the man brought from his tent the captain’s uniform coat, which he had forgotten. Absently he sought to put it on, and felt something crinkling in the sleeve. It was a bit of paper.
He halted, the old presentiment coming to his mind.
“Is Shannon here?” he asked of the man who had handed him the coat. “He was to get my moccasins mended for me.”
“No, captain, he is out with Captain Clark,” replied Fields, the Kentuckian.
“Very well—that will do, Fields.”
Meriwether Lewis sat down again by his little fire, his last letter in his hand. Gently he ran a finger along the seal—stooped over, kicked together the embers of the fire, and saw scratched in the wax a number. This was Number Three!
He did not open it for a time. He looked at it—no longer in dread, but in eagerness. It seemed to him, indeed, as if the letter had come in response to the outcry of his soul—that it really had dropped from the sky, manna for a hungry heart. It was the absence of this which had worn him thin, left him the shadow of the man he should have been.
Here, as he knew well, was one more summons to what seemed to him to be a duty. And off to the west, shining cold in the night under the stars, stood the mountains, beckoning. Which was the way?
He broke the seal slowly, with no haste, knowing that whatever the letter said it could mean only more unhappiness to him. Yet he was hungry for it as one who longs for a soothing drug.
He pushed together yet more closely the burning sticks of his little fire and bent over to read. It was very little that he saw written, but it spoke to him like a voice in the night:
Come back to me—ah, come back! I need you. I implore you to return!
There was no address, no date, no signature. There was no means of telling whence or how this letter had come to him, more than any of the others.
Go back to her—how could he, now? It was more than a year since these words had been written! What avail now, if he did return? No, he had delayed, he had gone on, and he had cost her—what? Perhaps her happiness as well as his own, perhaps the success of herself and of many others, perhaps his own success in life. Against that, what could he measure?
The white mountains on ahead made no reply to him. The stars glowed cold and white above him, but they seemed like a thousand facets of pitiless light turned upon his soul.
The quavering howl of a wolf on a near by eminence sounded like a voice to him, mocking, taunting, fiendish. Never, it seemed to him, had any man been thus unhappy. Even the wilderness had failed him! In a land of desolation he sat, a desolate soul.
CHAPTER VII THE MOUNTAINSWhen William Clark returned from his three days’ scouting trip, his forehead was furrowed with anxiety. His men were silent as they filed into camp and cast down their knapsacks.
“It’s no use, Merne,” said Clark, “we are in a pocket here. The other two forks, which we called the Madison and the Gallatin, both come from the southeast, entirely out of our course. The divide seems to face around south of us and bend up again on the west. Who knows the way across? Our river valley is gone. The only sure way seems back—downstream.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Meriwether Lewis quietly.
“I scarce know. I am worn out, Merne. My men have been driven hard.”
“And why not?”
His companion remained silent under the apparent rebuke.
“You don’t mean that we should return?” Lewis went on.
“Why not, Merne?” said William Clark, sighing.
“Our men are exhausted. There are other years than this.”
Meriwether Lewis turned upon his friend with the one flash of wrath which ever was known between them.
“Good Heavens, Captain Clark,” said he, “there is not any other year than this! There is not any other month, or week, or day but this! It is not for you or me to hesitate—within the hour I shall go on. We’ll cross over, or we’ll leave the bones of every man of the expedition here—this year—now!”
Clark’s florid face flushed under the sting of his comrade’s words; but his response was manful and just.
“You are right,” said he at length. “Forgive me if for a moment—just a moment—I seemed to question the possibility of going forward. Give me a night to sleep. As I said, I am worn out. If I ever see Mr. Jefferson again, I shall tell him that all the credit for this expedition rests with you. I shall say that once I wavered, and that I had no cause. You do not waver—yet I know what excuse you would have for it.”
“You are only weary, Will. It is my turn now,” said Meriwether Lewis; and he never told his friend of this last letter.
A moment later he had called one of his men.
“McNeal,” said he, “get Reuben Fields, Whitehouse, and Goodrich. Make light packs. We are going into the mountains!”
The four men shortly appeared, but they were silent, morose, moody. Those who were to remain in the camp shared their silence. Sacajawea alone smiled as they departed.
“That way!” said she, pointing; and she knew that her chief would find the path.
May we not wonder, in these later days, if any of us, who reap so carelessly and so selfishly where others have plowed and sown, reflect as we should upon the first cost of what we call our own? The fifteen million dollars paid for the vast empire which these men were exploring—that was little—that was naught. But ah, the cost in blood and toil and weariness, in love and loyalty and faith, in daring and suffering and heartbreak of those who went ahead! It was a few brave leaders who furnished the stark, unflinching courage for us all.
Sergeant Ordway, with Pryor and Gass, met in one of the many little ominous groups that now began to form among the men in camp. Captain Clark was sleeping, exhausted.
“It stands to reason,” said Ordway, usually so silent, “that the way across the range is up one valley to the divide and down the next creek on the opposite side. That is the way we crossed the Alleghanies.”
Pryor nodded his head.
“Sure,” said he,
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