The Conquest: The True Story of Lewis and Clark

  IV

  _THE BOAT HORN_

  All the romance of the old boating time was in Clark's wedding tripdown the Ohio. It was on a May morning when, stepping on board aflatboat at Louisville, he contrasted the daintiness of Julia withthat of any other travelling companion he had ever known.

  The river, foaming over its rocky bed, the boatmen blowing their longconical bugles from shore to shore, the keelboats, flat-bottoms, andarks loaded with emigrants all intent on "picking guineas fromgooseberry bushes," spoke of youth, life, action. Again the boatmanblew his bugle, echoes of other trumpets answered, "Farewell,farewell, fare--we-ll." Soon they were into the full sweep of thepellucid Ohio, mirroring skies and shores dressed in the livery ofRobin Hood.

  Frowning precipices and green islets arose, and projecting headlandsindenting the Ohio with promontories like a chain of shining lakes.Hills clothed in ancient timber, hoary whitened sycamores draped ingreen clusters of mistletoe, and magnificent groves of the dark greensugar tree reflected from the water below. Shut in to the water'sedge, a woody wilderness still, the river glided between itsumbrageous shores.

  Now and then the crowing of cocks announced a clearing where the axeof the settler had made headway, or some old Indian mound blossomedwith a peach orchard. Flocks of screaming paroquets alighted in thetreetops, humming birds whizzed into the honeysuckle vines and flashedaway with dewdrops on their jewelled throats.

  On the water with them, now near, now far, were other boats,--ferryflats and Alleghany skiffs, pirogues hollowed from prodigioussycamores, dug-outs and canoes, stately barges with masts and sailsand lifted decks like schooners, keel boats, slim and trim for lowwaters, Kentucky arks, broadhorns, roomy and comfortable, filled upwith chairs, beds, stoves, tables, bound for the Sangamon, CapeGirardeau, Arkansas.

  Floating caravans of men, women, children, servants, cattle, hogs,horses, sheep, and fowl were travelling down the great river. Someboats fitted up for stores dropped off at the settlements, blowing thebugle, calling the inhabitants down to trade.

  Here a tinner with his tinshop, with tools and iron, a floatingfactory, there a blacksmith shop with bellows and anvil, dry-goodsboats with shelves for cutlery and cottons, produce boats withKentucky flour and hemp, Ohio apples, cider, maple sugar, nuts,cheese, and fruit, and farther down, Tennessee cotton, Illinois corn,and cattle, Missouri lead and furs, all bound for New Orleans, apanorama of endless interest to Julia. Here white-winged schoonerswere laden entirely with turkeys, tobacco, hogs, horses, potatoes, orlumber. Nature pouring forth perennial produce from a hundredtributary streams.

  A bateau could descend from the mouth of the Ohio to New Orleans inthree weeks; three months of toil could barely bring it back. Howcould boats be made to go against the current? Everywhere and everywhereinventive minds were puzzling over motors, paddles--duck-foot,goose-foot, and elliptical,--wings and sails, side-wheels,stern-wheels, and screws,--and steam was in the air.

  As the sun went down in lengthening shadows a purple haze suffused thewaters. Adown La Belle Riviere, "the loveliest stream that everglistened to the moon," arose the evening cadence of the boatmen,--

  "Some row up, but we row down, All the way to Shawnee Town, Pull away! Pull away! Pull away to Shawnee Town."

  The crescent moon shone brightly on crag and stream and floatingforest, the air was mild and moist, the boat glided as in a dream, andthe mocking bird enchanted the listening silence.

  To Clark no Spring had ever seemed so beautiful. Sitting on deck withJulia he could not forget that turbulent time when as a boy he firstplunged down these waters. Symbolic of his whole life it seemed, untilnow the storm and stress of youth had calmed into the placid currentof to-day. The past,--the rough toil-hardened past of WilliamClark,--fell away, and as under a lifted silken curtain he floatedinto repose. The rough old life of camps and forts was gone forever.

  And to Julia, everything was new and strange,--La Belle Riviere itselfwhispered of Louisiana. Like an Alpine horn the bugle echoed thedreamlife of the waters.

  The fiddles scraping, boatmen dancing, the smooth stream rollingcalmly through the forest, the girls who gathered on shore to see thepageant pass, the river itself, momentarily lost to view, then leapingagain in Hogarth's line of beauty,--all murmured perpetual music.

  Then slumber fell upon the dancers, but still Clark and Julia satwatching. From clouds of owls arose voices of the night, cries ofwolves reverberated on shore, the plaintive whippoorwill in thefoliage lamented to the moon, meteors rose from the horizon to sweepmajestically aloft and burst in a showering spray of gems below.

  The very heavens were unfamiliar. Awed, impressed, by the mysteriesaround them, they slept.

  Before sun-up the mocking-bird called from the highest treetop andcontinued singing until after breakfast, imitating the jay, thecardinal, and the lapwing, then sailing away into a strain of his ownwild music.

  At the mouth of the Wabash arks were turning in to old Vincennes.Below, broader grew the Ohio, unbroken forests still and twinklingstars. Here and there arose the graceful catalpa in full flower, andgroves of cottonwoods so tall that at a distance one could fancy someplanter's mansion hidden in their depths. Amid these Eden scenesappeared here and there the deserted cabin of some murdered woodmanwhose secret only the Shawnee knew.

  Wild deer, crossing the Ohio, heard the bugle call, and throwing theirlong branching antlers on their shoulders sank out of sight, swimmingunder the water until the shore opened into the sheltering forest.

  At times the heavens were darkened with the flights of pigeons; therewas a song of the thrush and the echoing bellow of the big horned owl.Wild turkeys crossed their path and wild geese screamed on theirjourney to the lakes.

  One day the boats stopped, and before her Julia beheld the Mississippisweeping with irresistible pomp and wrath, tearing at the shores,bearing upon its tawny bosom the huge drift of mount and meadow, wholeherds of drowned buffalo, trunks of forest trees and caved-in banks ofsilt, leaping, sweeping seaward in the sun. Without a pause thebridegroom river reached forth his brawny arm, and gathered in thestarry-eyed Ohio. Over his Herculean shoulders waved her silvertresses, deep into his bosom passed her gentle transparency as thetwain made one swept to the honeymoon.

  All night Clark's bateau lay in a bend while York and the men kept offthe drift that seemed to set toward them in their little cove astoward a magnet.

  On the 26th of May Governor Lewis received a letter from Clark askingfor help up the river. Without delay the Governor engaged a barge totake their things to Bellefontaine and another barge to accommodatethe General, his family and baggage.

  Dispatching a courier over the Bellefontaine road, Governor Lewis sentto Colonel Hunt a message, asking him to send Ensign Pryor to meet theparty.

  With what delight Clark and his bride saw the barges with Ensign Pryorin charge, coming down from St. Louis. Then came the struggle up theturbulent river. Clark was used to such things, but never before hadhe looked on them with a bride at his side. With sails and oars andcordelles all at once, skilled hands paddled and poled and stemmed thetorrent, up, up to the rock of the new levee.

  Thus the great explorer brought home his bride to St. Louis in thatnever-to-be-forgotten May-time one hundred years ago.