"Yes, sir!"

"Has any boat pa.s.sed up the river within the last day--for instance, while we were away at the hunt?"

"I think not, sir. Surely any one coming up the river would have turned in at our camp."

Lewis turned to Ga.s.s, to Pryor; but both agreed that no boat could have gone by unnoticed.

"And no man has come into the camp from below--no horseman?"

They all shook their heads. Their leader looked from one to the other keenly, trying to see if anything was concealed from him; but the honest faces of his men showed no suspicion of his own doubts.

He dismissed them, feeling it beneath his dignity to make inquiry as to the bearer of the mysterious letter; nor did he mention it again to William Clark. He knew only that some one of his men had a secret from his commander.

"The men will find Shannon and bring him in ahead--we can't afford to wait here for them. The water is falling now," said Clark. "We are doing our twenty miles daily. The men laugh on the line, for the bars are exposed, and they can track along sh.o.r.e easily. Suppose Shannon were out three days--that would make it sixty miles upstream--or less, for him, for he could cut the bends. I make no doubt that when he found himself out for the night he started up the river; even before this time. _En avant_, Cruzatte!" he called. "You shall lead the line for the first draw. Make it lively for an hour! Sing some song, Cruzatte, if you can--some song of old Kaskaskia."

"Sure, the Frenchmans, she'll lead on the line this morning, _Capitaine_! I'll put nine, seven Frenchmans on the line, and she'll run on the bank on her bare feet two hour--one hour. This buffalo meat, she make Frenchmans strong like nothing!"

"Go on, Frenchy!" said Patrick Ga.s.s, Cruzatte's sergeant, who stood near by. "Wait until time comes for my squad on the line--'tis thin we'll make the elkhide hum! There's a few of the Irish along."

"Ho!" said Ordway, usually silent. "Wait rather for us Yankees--we'll show you what old Vermont can do!"

"As to that," said Pryor, "belike the Ohio and Kentucky men could serve a turn as well as the Irish or the French. Old Kaintuck has to help out the others, the way she did in the French and Indian War!"

"Well," broke in Peter Weiser, joining them as they argued, "I am from Pennsylvania; but I am half Virginian, and there are some others from the Old Dominion. When you are all done, call on us--ole Virginny never tires!"

The contagion of their light-heartedness, their loyalty and devotion, came as solace to the heart of Meriwether Lewis. He smiled in spite of himself, his eye kindling with confidence and admiration as he looked over his men.

They were stripping for their day's work, ready for mud or water or sun, as the case might be. Amidships, on the highest locker on the barge, one of the Kentuckians was flapping his arms l.u.s.tily and giving the c.o.c.kcrow, the river challenge of frontier days. Others seated themselves at the long sweeps of the barge, while yet others were manning the pirogues.

A few moments later, with joyous shouts, they were on their way once more--and not setting their faces toward home. In an hour they were above the first long bend. The wilderness had closed behind them. No trace of the Indian village was left, no sight of the lingering smoke of their last camp fires.

Faithfully, patiently, day by day, they held their way, sustained by the renewed fascination of adventure, hardened and inured to risk and toil alike. The distance behind them lengthened so enormously that they began to figure upon the unknown rather than the known.

"We surely must be almost across now!" said some of the men.

All of them were sore distressed over the loss of Shannon. Two weeks had pa.s.sed since they left the Yankton Sioux, and four times the faithful trailers had come back to the boats with no trace of the missing one.

"It certainly is in the off chance now," a.s.sented William Clark seriously, one day as they lay in the noon encampment. "But perhaps he may be among the natives somewhere, and we may hear of him when we come back--if ever we do."

"If he got by the Teton Sioux, and kept on up the river, in time he would find us somewhere among the Mandans," said Meriwether Lewis.

"But we will try once more before we give him up. Send a man to the top of the bluff with my spygla.s.s."

Busy in their labors over their maps, and in the recording of their compa.s.s bearings, for half an hour they forgot their messenger, until a shout called their attention. He was waving his hands, wildly beckoning. Yonder, alone in the plains, bewildered, hopeless, wandering, was the lost man, who did not even know that the river was close at hand! Shannon's escape from a miserable fate was but one more instance of the almost miraculous good fortune which seemed to attend the expedition.

"And she was lucky man, too!" said Drouillard, a half-hour later, nodding toward the opposite sh.o.r.e. "Suppose he is on that side, she'll not go in today!"

"Two weeks on his foot!"

They looked where he pointed. Red men, mounted, were visible, a dozen of them, motionless, on the rim of the farther bank, watching the explorers as they began to make ready for their journey. Lewis turned his great field gla.s.s in that direction.

"Sioux!" said he. "They are painted, too. I fancy," he added, as he turned toward his a.s.sociates, "that this must be Black Buffalo's band of Tetons you've told us about, Drouillard."

"_Oui, oui_, the Teton!" exclaimed Drouillard. "I'll not spoke his language, me; but she'll be bad Sioux. _Prenez garde, Capitaine, prenez garde pour ces sauvages, les Sioux!_"

And indeed this warning proved well founded. More Indians gathered in toward the sh.o.r.e that afternoon, riding along, parallel with the course of the boats, whooping, shouting to the boatmen. At nightfall there were a hundred of them a.s.sembled--painted warriors, decked in all their savage finery, bold men, showing no fear of the newcomers.

The white men went about their camp duties in a mingling of figures, white and red. Lewis lined up his men, beat his drums, fired the great swivel piece to impress the savages.

"Bring out the flag, Will," said he. "Put up our council awning. I'll have a parley with their head man. Can you make him out, Drouillard?"

"He'll said he was Black Buffalo," replied the Frenchman. "I don't understand him very good."

"Take him these things, Drouillard," said Lewis. "Give him a lace coat and hat, a red feather, some tobacco, and this medal. Tell him that when we get ready we'll make a talk with him."

But Black Buffalo and his men were not in the mood to wait for their parley. They crowded down to the bank angrily, excitedly, even after they had received the presents sent them. Lewis, busy about the barge, which had not yet found a good landing-place, turned at the sound of his friend's voice, to see Clark struggling in the grasp of two or three of the Sioux, among them the Teton chief. A savage had his hand flung about the mast of the pirogue, others laid hold upon the painter. Clark, flushed and angry at the touch of another man's hand, had whipped out his sword, and the Indians were drawing their bows from their cases.

At that moment Lewis gave a loud order, which arrested them all. The Sioux turned toward the barge, to see the black mouth of the great swivel gun pointing at them--the gun whose thunder voice they had heard.

"Big medicine!" called out Black Buffalo in terror, and ordered his men back.

Clark offered his hand to Black Buffalo, but it was refused. Angry, he sprang into the pirogue and pushed off for the barge. Three of the Indians stepped into the pirogue with him, jabbering excitedly, and, with Clark, went aboard the barge, where they made themselves very much at home.

"_Croyez moi!_" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Drouillard. "These Hinjun, she'll think he own this country!"

Here, then, they were, in the Teton country. No sleep that night for either of the leaders, nor for any of the men. They pulled the pirogues alongside the barge and sat, barricaded behind their goods, rifle in hand.

They kept their visitors prisoners all that night, and whatever might have been the construction the Tetons placed on their act, they themselves by dawn were far more placable. Continually they motioned that the whites should come ash.o.r.e, that they must stop, that they must not go on further up the river. But when all was prepared for the start on the following morning, Lewis ordered the great cable of the barge cast off.

Black Buffalo in turn ordered his men to lay hold upon it and retain the boat. Once more the Indians began to draw their bows. Once more Lewis turned upon them the muzzle of his cannon. His men shook the priming into their pieces, and made ready to fire. An instant, and much blood might have been shed.

"Black Buffalo," said Lewis, as best he might through his interpreter, "I heard you were a chief. You are not Black Buffalo, but some squaw!

We are going to see if we can find Black Buffalo, the real chief. If he were here, he would accept our tobacco. The geese are flying down the river. Soon the snow will come. We cannot wait. See, I give you this tobacco on the prairie. Go and see if you can find Black Buffalo, the real chief!"

"Ha!" exclaimed the Teton leader, his dignity outraged. "You say I am not Black Buffalo--that I am not a chief. I will show you!"

He caught the twists of good black Virginia tobacco tossed to him, and cast the rope far from him upon the tawny flood of the Missouri. An instant later the oars had caught the water and Cruzatte had spread the bowsail of the barge. So they won through one more of the most dangerous of the tribes against whom they had been warned.

"A near thing, Merne!" said Will Clark after a time. "There is some mighty Hand that seems to guide us--is it not the truth?"

CHAPTER IV

THE CROSSROADS OF THE WEST

The geese were now indeed flying down the river, coming in long, dark lines out of the icy north. Sometimes the sky was overcast hours at a stretch. A new note came into the voice of the wind. The nights grew colder.