The Magnificent Adventure Part 30

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 MOUNTAINS

When 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 Ga.s.s, 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, "and all the game-trails break off to the south and southwest. Follow the elk!"

"Is it so?" exclaimed Patrick Ga.s.s. "You think it aisy to find a way across yonder range? And how d'ye know jist how the Alleghanies was crossed first? Did they make it the first toime they thried? Things is aisy enough after they've been done _wance_--but it's the first toime that counts!"

"There is no other way, Pat," argued Ordway. "'Tis the rivers that make pa.s.ses in any mountain range."

"Which is the roight river, then?" rejoined Ga.s.s. "We're lookin' for wan that mebbe is nowhere near here. S'pose we go to the top yonder and take a creek down, and s'pose that creek don't run the roight way at all, but comes out a thousand miles to the southwest--where are you then, I'd like to know? The throuble with us is we're the first wans to cross here, and not comin' along after some one else has done the thrick for us."

Pryor was willing to argue further.

"All the Injuns have said the big river was over there somewhere."

"'Somewhere'!" exclaimed Patrick Ga.s.s. "'Somewhere' is a mighty long ways when we're lost and hungry!"

"Which is just what we are now," rejoined Pryor. "The sooner we start back the quicker we'll be out of this."

"Pryor!" The square face of the Irishman hardened at once. "Listen to me. Ye're my bunkmate and friend, but I warn ye not to say that agin!

If ye said it where he could hear ye--that man ahead--do you know what he would do to you?"

"I ain't particular. 'Tis time we took this thing into our own hands."

"It's where we're takin' it _now_, Pryor!" said Ga.s.s ominously. "A coort martial has set for less than that ye've said!"

"Mebbe you couldn't call one--I don't know."

"Mebbe we couldn't, eh? I mind me of a little settlement I had with that man wance--no coort martial at all--me not enlisted at the toime, and not responsible under the arthicles of war. I said to his face I was of the belief I could lick him. I said it kindly, and meant no harm, because at the time it seemed to me I could, and 'twould be a pleasure to me. But boys, he hit me wan time, and when I came to I was careless whether it was the arthicles of war or not had hit me. Listen to me now, Pryor--and you, too, Ordway--a man like that is liable to have judgment in his head as well as a punch in his arm. We're safer to folly him than to folly ourselves. Moreover, I want you to say to your men that we will not have thim foregatherin' around and talkin'

any disrespect to their shuperiors. If we're in a bad place, let us fight our ways out. Let's not turn back until we are forced. I never did loike any rooster in the ring that would either squawk or run away. That man yonder, on ahead, naded mighty little persuadin' to fight. I'm with him!"

"Well, maybe you are right, Pat," said Ordway after a time. And so the mutiny once more halted.