A Volunteer with Pike Part 19

"There are others than tricksters that share my plans--true-hearted men at New Orleans. The Mexican a.s.sociation stands pledged,--three hundred and more loyal workers in the cause of my country's freedom."

"Creoles," I said. "You could count upon a hundred of my backwoods countrymen to do more, should it come to the setting of triggers."

"We shall see. But there are others than creoles in the a.s.sociation.

Already Senor Clark has made two voyages to Vera Cruz, to spy out the defences. I go now to tell him more. You know something as to the power of our religious orders. At New Orleans are two such. But what is all this to you now?"

"Much, Don Pedro! My heart is with the success of your plans!"

"_Muchas gracias, amigo!_ Would that you might journey with me to my people! But the gate at Vera Cruz is narrow for heretics. _Adios!_"

"_Adios_, Don Pedro. May we meet under brighter skies!"

"G.o.d grant it, Juan!" he cried, with unfeigned friendliness.

I clasped his hand, and hastened away. My heart was too full for words.

Early as I expected to start in the morning, I did not seek my bed. I could not sleep. Having bargained for my upstream pa.s.sage with a St.

Louis friend, in command of a keelboat, I wandered out and strolled through the sloping streets of the town. But even the wild revelry of the rivermen, for which Natchez is so evilly noted, failed to win from me more than pa.s.sing heed. My own thoughts were in wilder turmoil. In beside the memory of the golden love-glory which had shone in her eyes, and fit mate to the bitter disappointment of the loss that Don Pedro's entrance had cost me, there had crept into my mind a maddening doubt that I had seen clearly,--a fear that the glow in her eyes, the swaying of her dear form nearer to me, had been only the fantasies of my pa.s.sion.

Unable to endure the torment of such doubt, I hastened back, to linger in the shadow beneath my lady's balcony. After a time, so great was my longing, I found courage to murmur the refrain of a song we had sung together on the river. I dared not raise my voice for fear Don Pedro would hear and divine my purpose, and my low notes seemed lost in the drunken ditties and outcries of the carousers in the tavern taproom.

An hour dragged by its weary length, and no soft whisper floated down to me from above, no graceful vision appeared at the vine-clad bal.u.s.trade. Despair settled heavily upon my heart. The cadenced Spanish vowels died away upon my lips. I turned to go. A small white object dropped lightly from above and fell at my feet.

In a trice my despair had given place to hope and joy no less extravagant. I s.n.a.t.c.hed up the message, and rushed in to open it before the waxen taper, in the privacy of my room. The wrapping was a lace-edged handkerchief of finest linen, in the corner of which was an embroidered "A. V."--my lady's initials.

But when I opened it, thinking to find a written missive, there appeared only a great, sweet-scented magnolia bloom. Yet was not this enough? Was it not far more than I had expected--than had been my right to expect?

I held it close before my eyes, my thoughts upon the sender, whose cheeks were still more delicate in texture than these creamy petals. I turned the blossom around to view its perfections. She had held it in her hand!

Upon one of the delicate petals faint lines had appeared. They darkened into clear letters under my gaze, and those letters spelled "_Au revoir_!"

CHAPTER XIII

AGAINST THE CURRENT

Had I been in funds, I should have preferred a horse for the up-river trip. As it was, I was glad of the opportunity to make the pa.s.sage by boat with my friend the captain, and in so doing, to earn a pocketful of wages. It is not, however, a proceeding I should advise to be undertaken by one who lacks the strength and experience necessary for poling and cordelling.

At times, to be sure, we were able to relieve our labors by an occasional resort to the sails, when the wind chanced to be fair. But in the very nature of the case, this aid could never be more than temporary, since the windings of the river were bound, sooner or later, to make a headwind of what had been a fair breeze.

So, for the most part, our voyage all the way from Natchez to St. Louis meant one continuous round, from morning till night, of setting our poles at the boat's prow, each in his turn, and tramping to the stern along the side gangways, or walking-boards,--there to raise our poles and return to the prow, to repeat the laborious proceeding. I can say that keelboat poling is a splendid method of developing the muscles of the back and lower limbs, provided the man who attempts it begins with a sufficient stock of strength and endurance to carry him over the first week.

This does not mean that I enjoyed the trip. Softened by my Winter in Washington, the first few days out of Natchez were as trying to me as to the regular members of the crew after their carousals and excesses in New Orleans and Natchez. Our boat, which had come down with a cargo of lead from the mines about St. Louis, was returning with a consignment of the cheap calicos and the coa.r.s.e broadcloth called strouding, which form the basis of the Indian barter in the fur trade; and cloth in bolts, closely stowed, is not the lightest of cargoes.

But, once we had worked ourselves into condition, we shoved our craft upstream from daylight till nightfall at an average speed of over three miles an hour. Whenever the bank and channel permitted, we eased our labor at the poles by pa.s.sing a towline ash.o.r.e and cordelling the boat, while our captain, one of the best on the river, was ever alert to hoist sail with every favorable breeze.

If I did not enjoy the voyage, I nevertheless had cause to feel thankful for the hard work which held my melancholy thoughts in check and sent me to my bunk at night so outspent that I slept as soundly as any man aboard. A man treading the walking-boards, bowed over his pole, may brood on his troubles for a week or two, but none could do so longer unless his system were full of malaria. For the constant, vigorous exercise in the open air is bound to send the good red blood coursing through every vein of the body, until even the most clouded brain must throw off its vapors.

Once free from the melancholy which had oppressed me the first few days, I gave most of my thought to the problem of how I should fulfil my vow to cross the barrier that was so soon to lie between my lady and myself.

My main hope lay in the possibility of obtaining Lieutenant Pike's permission to join his expedition as a volunteer. But he was so strict in his adherence to the most rigid requirements of his position as an officer, that there was grave reason to doubt whether he would accept my services without an order from the General.

There were other plans to be considered, one of which was that I should throw in my fortunes with Senor Liza and his creole fellows. The idea was distasteful, yet, reflecting on what little I had learned of the plans of Colonel Burr and his friends, I was not so sure but that Liza's party were quite as loyal. At the least, I could see no harm in aiding Liza to carry a trading expedition into Santa Fe. So far as my own plans were concerned, the venture would promise more at the other end than if I joined Pike's party. If I reached that other end, I should be going among the people of New Spain in company with persons of their own blood.

There remained the most desperate plan of all. I could set out alone, and trust to my unaided craft and single rifle to carry me safe across the hundreds of miles of desert and the snowy mountains of which Alisanda had spoken. I had travelled the wilderness traces and the trackless forests too often alone to have any fear of wild beasts. But there was the uncertainty of being able to kill enough meat to keep from starving in the Western wilds, and on the other hand the certainty of encountering bands of the little-known p.a.w.nees and Ietans.

Rather than not go at all, I was resolved to attempt this desperate venture. But my plan was to seek first to attach myself to my friend's party, and, failing that, to open negotiations with Liza.

After a brief stop at Kaskaskia, that century-old trading post of the French, we undertook the last run to St. Louis with much spirit. The greater part of the crew were eager to reach St. Louis in time for the celebration of Independence Day. In this we were disappointed, being so set back by headwinds that we did not tie up to the home wharf until the evening of the sixth of July.

My first inquiries relieved me of my fear that Lieutenant Pike had already started. He was waiting with his party, fourteen or fifteen miles upstream, at the Cantonment Belle Fontaine, established the previous year by General Wilkinson. I had already learned at Kaskaskia that the General had pa.s.sed us in his barge far down the river, and had arrived in St. Louis several days before us. To this was now added the news that he had gone on up to Belle Fontaine.

Such an opportunity to meet the General and my friend together was not to be lost. I made my plans over-night in St. Louis, stored my chest, provided myself with a new hunter's suit, and obtained letters of recommendation to the General from two gentlemen of influence.

Dawn found me at the convenient river front which gives St. Louis such an advantage over the other up-river settlements of twice its size and age. The rock bank not only prevents the incutting of the current, but, owing to its lowness, gives easy access to and from the water, unlike the high bluffs upon which most of the settlements have been located.

Looking about for an up-river party, I was so fortunate as to fall in with Mr. Daniel Boone, who with his son-in-law, Flanders Calloway, had come down from La Charette with a bateau-load of furs. Seeing me in hunting dress, the old gentleman showed the keenest interest in my intentions, and upon learning that my immediate purpose was to reach Belle Fontaine, invited me aboard their bateau.

On the way upstream he made me sit beside him in the stern-sheets, and his look betrayed such an eagerness over my plans that I could not resist confiding them to him. It was sad to see the youthful fire flash and sparkle in his bright old eyes, only to dull and fade to the grayness of forced resignation.

"My days are past, John," he said, in his quiet, almost gentle voice.

"You have heard me tell of the trip I took with your father through the Choctaw nation; but I'm now past my threescore years and ten, lad. Take off the ten, and I'd be with you on this traceless quest to the Spanish country. It's hard to be tied down to a scant fifty miles or so of free range. But my old bones stiffen and call for rest after their wanderings. I reckon, though, I've done a man's share in my time. Not that I make any boast of it; only I feel that I was an instrument in G.o.d's providence to open the wilderness to our people. I feel it none the less that there were all those others before me. Captain Morgan founded New Madrid in sixty-six--"

"But that was under Spanish rule," I exclaimed. "Yours was the first of the advanced American settlements in Kentucky. If only I may have a share in a like tracing of our great Western plains!"

He gave me a shrewd glance. "You fear they won't let you go with the expedition. Why not follow their trace, and join their party in the p.a.w.nee country? This young lieutenant is your friend, you say. He will be sure to take you into camp."

Simple as was this stratagem, it had not occurred to me in all my scheming. Yet it was so practicable that I at once a.s.sured Mr. Boone I would, if need were, carry out the suggestion. A few minutes later he landed me at Belle Fontaine, and we parted with a warm handshake. Though deprived by litigation of the bulk of his Spanish grant on the Femme Osage, as he had been in the early nineties of his Kentucky lands, Mr.

Boone remains one of the most even-tempered and kindliest men I know.

Upon reaching the cantonment, my first intention had been to seek out General Wilkinson. But within a few paces I caught sight of a company of the Second Infantry on parade, and one glance was enough to tell me that the officer in command was my friend Lieutenant Pike. Though I could see only his trim back, there was no mistaking the odd manner in which he stood with his head so bent to the right that the tip of his chapeau touched his shoulder.

Before many minutes he dismissed the company, and turning about, saw me waiting within a dozen paces. In another moment he was grasping my hand, his blue eyes beaming and his fair cheeks flushing like a girl's beneath their sunburn.

"Good fortune, John!" he cried. "I feared you had gone on down to settle in New Orleans. The General spoke of meeting you in Natchez."

"Did he tell you the cause of that meeting--and the outcome?"

"Surely you cannot blame him!"

"No, no, Montgomery!--since it was you who had forestalled me!"

"Yet you must have had your heart set upon leading the expedition."

"It was to obtain the leadership that I went on to Washington."

"No!"