CHAPTER VIII
TRAIL'S END
Where lately had been gloom and despair there now reigned joy andconfidence. With the great mountains behind them, and this new,pleasant and gentle land all around them, the spirits of the men rosebuoyantly.
They could float easily down the strong current of the great SnakeRiver, laboring but little, if at all. They made long hours every day,and by the middle of autumn they saw ahead of them a yet grander floodthan that of the noble river which was bearing them.
At last they had found the Columbia! They had found what Mackenzienever found, what Fraser was not to find--that great river, now to betaken over with every right of double discovery by these messengers ofthe young republic. How swelled their hearts, when at last they knewthis truth, unescapable, incontrovertible! It was theirs. They hadwon!
The men had grown reckless now. Cruzatte, Labiche, Drouillard--all theadventurers--sang as they traveled, gayer and more gay from day today.
Always the landscape had fascinating interest for them in its repeatedchanges. They were in a different world. No one had seen themountains which they saw. The Rockies, the Bitter Roots--these theyhad passed; and now they must yet pass through another range, thistime not by the toilsome process of foot or horse travel, but on thestrong flood of the river. The Columbia had made a trail for themthrough the Cascades.
Down the stormy rapids they plunged exulting. Mount Hood, St. Helen's,Rainier, Adams--all the lofty peaks of the great Cascades, so named ata later date, appeared before them, around them, behind them, as theyswung into the last lap of their wild journey and headed down towardthe sea. Cruzatte, Labiche, Drouillard--all you others--time now,indeed, for you to raise the song of the old voyageurs! None have comeso far as you--your paddles are wrinkling new waters. You are bravemen, every one, and yours is the reward of the brave!
Soon, so said the Indians, they would come to ships--canoes with treesstanding in them, on which teepees were hung.
"Me," said Cruzatte, "I never in my whole life was seen a sheep! Iwill be glad for see wan now."
But they found no ship anywhere in the lower Columbia. All the shoreswere silent, deserted; no vessel lay at anchor. Before them lay theempty river, wide as a sea, and told no tales of what had been. Theywere alone, in the third year out from home. Thousands of leagues theyhad traveled, and must travel back again.
Here they saw many gulls. As to Columbus these birds had meant land,to our discoverers they meant the sea. Forty miles below the lastvillage they saw it--rolling in solemn, white-topped waves beyond thebar.
Every paddle ceased at its work, and the boats lay tossing on theincoming waves. There was the end of the great trail. Yonder lay thePacific!
Meriwether Lewis turned and looked into the eyes of William Clark, whosat at the bow of the next canoe. Each friend nodded to the other.Neither spoke. The lips of both were tight.
"The big flag, Sergeant Gass!" said Lewis.
They turned ashore. There had been four mess fires at each encampmentthus far--those of the three sergeants and that of the officers; butnow, as they huddled on the wet beach on which they disembarked, theofficers ordered the men to build but one fire, and that a large one.Grouped about this they all stood, ragged, soaked, gaunt, unkempt, yetthe happiest company of adventurers that ever followed a long trail toits end.
"Men," said Meriwether Lewis at length, "we have now arrived at theend of our journey. In my belief there has never been a party moreloyal to the purpose on which it has been engaged. Without yourstrength and courage we could not have reached the sea. It is my wishto thank you for Mr. Jefferson, the President of the United States,who sent us here. If at any time one of you has been disposed todoubt, or to resent conditions which necessarily were imposed, let allthat be forgotten. We have done our work. Here we must pass thewinter. In the spring we will make quick time homeward."
They gave him three cheers, and three for Captain Clark. York gaveexpression to his own emotions by walking about the beach on hishands.
"And the confounded ships are all gone back to sea!" grumbled PatrickGass. "I've been achin' for days to git here, in the hope of foindin'some sailor man I'd loike to thrash--and here is no one at all, atall!"
"Will," said Meriwether Lewis after a time, pulling out the inevitablemap, "I wonder where it was that Alexander Mackenzie struck thePacific twelve years ago! It must have been far north of here. We havecome around forty-seven degrees of longitude west from Washington, andsomething like nine degrees north unite with France or Spain on thesouth to known exploration by land. We have driven the wedge home!Never again can Great Britain on the north unite with France or Spainon the south to threaten our western frontier. If they dispute thetitle we purchased from Napoleon, they can never deny our claim byright of discovery. This, I say, solidifies our republic! We have donethe work given us to do."
"Yes," grinned William Clark, standing on one leg and warming his wetmoccasin sole at the fire; "and I wonder where that other gentleman,Mr. Simon Fraser, is just now!"
They could not know that Fraser, the trader who was their rival in thegreat race to the Pacific, was at that time snow-bound in the Rockiesmore than one thousand miles north of them.
Three years after the time when this little band of adventurers stoodin the rain at the mouth of the Columbia, Fraser, at the mouth of theriver named after him, heard of white men who had come to the oceansomewhere far to the south. Word had passed up the coast, among thenative tribes, of men who had white skins, and who had with them ablack man with curly hair.
"That's Lewis and Clark!" said Simon Fraser. "They were at the Mandanvillages. We are beaten!"
So now the largest flag left to Lewis and Clark floated by the side ofa single fire on the wet beach on the north shore of the Columbia.Here a rude bivouac was pitched, while the leaders finished theirfirst hasty investigation along the beach.
"There is little to attract us here," said William Clark. "On thesouth shore there is better shelter for our winter camp." So theyheaded their little boats across the wide flood of the Columbia.
It was now December of the year 1805. Fort Clatsop, as they calledtheir new stockade, was soon in process of erection--seven splendidcabins, built of the best-working wood these men ever had seen; a tallstockade with a gate, such as their forefathers had always built inany hostile country.
While some worked, others hunted, finding the elk abundant. More thanone hundred elk and many deer were killed. And having nothing better,they now set to work to tan the hides of elk and deer, and to make newclothing. As to civilized equipment they had little left. About fourhundred pairs of moccasins they made that winter, Sacajawea presidingover the moccasin-boards, and teaching the men to sew.
Clark, the indefatigable, a natural geographer, completed theremarkable series of maps which so fully established the accuracy oftheir observations and the usefulness of the voyage across thecontinent. Lewis kept up his records and extended his journals. Allwere busy, all happier than they had been since their departure fromthe East.
Christmas was once more celebrated to the tune of the Frenchman'sfiddle. Came New Year's Day also; and by that time the stockade wasfinished, the gate was up, the men were ready for any fortune whichmight occur.
"Pretty soon, by and by," said the voyageurs, "we will run on theriver for home once more!"
Even Sacajawea, having fulfilled her great ambition of looking outover the sea which tasted of salt, said that she, too, would becontent to go back to her people.
"We must leave a record, Will," said Lewis one day, looking up fromhis papers. "We must take no chances of the results of our explorationnot reaching Washington. Should we be lost among the tribes east ofhere, perhaps some ship may take that word to Mr. Jefferson."
So now, between them, they formulated that famous announcement to theworld, which, one year after their safe arrival home overland, theships brought around by Cape Horn, to advise the world that atranscontinental path had been blazed:
The object of this list is that through the medium of some civilized person who may see the same, it may be made known to the world that the party consisting of the persons whose names are hereunto annexed, and who were sent out by the government of the United States to explore the interior of the continent of North America, did penetrate the same by the way of the Missouri and Columbia Rivers, to the discharge of the latter into the Pacific Ocean, where they arrived on the 14th day of November, 1805, and departed the 23rd day of March, 1806, on their return trip to the United States by the same route by which they had come out.
This, so soon as they knew their starting date, they signed, each ofthem, and copies were made for posting here and there in such placesas naturally would be discovered by any mariners coming in. And todaywe--who can glibly list the names of the multimillionaires ofAmerica--cannot tell the names of more than two of those thirty-onemen, each of whom should be an immortal.
"Boats now, Will!" said Meriwether Lewis. "We must have boats againstour start in the spring. These canoes which brought us down from theKooskooskie were well enough in their way, but will not serve for theupstream journey. Again we must lift up the entire party against thecurrent of a great river. Get some of the Indians' seagoing canoes,Will--their lines are easier than those of our dugouts."
Need was for skilful trading now on the part of William Clark, for,eager as the natives were for the white men's goods, scant store ofthem remained. All the fishhooks were gone, most of the beads,practically all the hats and coats which once had served so well. Whenat length Clark announced that he had secured a fine Chinook canoe,there remained for all the return voyage, thousands of miles among theIndians, only a half-dozen blankets, a few little trinkets, a hat, anda uniform coat.
"You could tie up all the rest in a couple of handkerchiefs," saidWilliam Clark, laughing. "But such as it is, it must last us back toSt. Louis--or at least to our caches on the Missouri."
"How is your salt, Will?" asked Lewis. "And your powder?"
"In fine shape," was the reply. "We have put the new-made salt in someof the empty canisters. There is plenty of powder and lead left, andwe can pick up more as we reach our caches going eastward. With whatdried meat we can lay up from the elk here, we ought to make a goodstart."
Thus they planned, these two extraordinary young men, facing atranscontinental journey of four thousand miles, with no betterequipment than the rifles which had served them on their way out. Asfor their followers, all the discontent and doubt had given way to animplicit faith. All seemed well fed and content, save one--the man onwhose shoulders had rested the gravest responsibility, the man inwhose soul had been born the vision of this very scene.
"What is the matter with you, Merne?" grumbled his more buoyantcompanion. "Are you still carrying all the weight of the entireworld?"
Lewis turned upon his friend with the same patient smile. Both wereconscious that between them there was growing a thin, impermeableveil--something mysterious, the only barrier which ever had separatedthese two loyal souls.
Sacajawea, the Indian girl, was as keen-eyed as the red-headed chief.In the new boldness that she had learned in her position as generalpet of the expedition, she would sometimes talk to the chiefreproachfully.
"Capt'in," she said one day, "what for you no laff? What for you noeat? What for you all time think, think, think? See," she extended ahand--"I make you some more moccasin. I got picture your foot--thesefit plenty good."
"Thank you, Bird Woman," said Lewis, rousing himself. "Without you wewould not be here today. What can I give you in return for allthat--in return for these?"
He took the pair of handsomely stitched moccasins, dangling them bythe strings over one finger; but even as he did so, the old broodingmelancholy fell upon him once more. He sat, forgetful of the girl'spresence, staring moodily at the fire. Sacajawea, grieving like alittle child, stole silently away.
Why did Meriwether Lewis never laugh? Why did he always think, think,think? Why had there grown between him and his friend that thin,indefinable reserve?
He was hungry--hungry for another message out of the sky--another giftof manna in the wilderness. Who had brought those mysterious letters?Whoever he was, why did he not bring another? Were they alldone--should he never hear from her again?
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