CHAPTER X
THE ABYSS
The little Indian dog sat on the table, silent, motionless, looking atits master, whose head was bowed upon his arms. Now and then it hadstooped as if it would have looked in his face, but dared not, if forvery excess of love. It turned an inquiring eye to the door, which,after a time, opened.
William Clark, silent, stood once more at the side of his friend. Helooked on the sad and haggard face which was turned toward him, andfell back. His eye caught sight of the folded paper crushed betweenLewis's fingers. He asked no questions, but he knew.
"Enough!" broke out Meriwether Lewis hoarsely. "No more of this--wemust be gone! Are the men ready? Why do we delay? Why are we not awayfor the journey home?"
So impatient, so incoherent, did his speech seem that for a time Clarkalmost feared lest his friend's reason might have been affected. Buthe only stood looking at Lewis, ready to be of such aid as might be.
"In two hours, Merne," said he, "we will be on our way."
It was now near the end of March. They dated and posted up theirbulletins. They had done their task. They had found the great river,they had found the sea, they had mapped the way across the newcontinent. Their glorious work had gloriously been done.
Such was their joy at starting home again, the boatmen disregarded thedown-coming current of the great waters--they sang at the paddles,jested. Only their leader was silent and unsmiling, and he drove themhard. Short commons they knew often enough before they reached themouth of the Walla Walla, where they found friendly Indians who gavethem horse meat--which seemed exceedingly good food.
The Nez Perces, whose country was reached next beyond the WallaWallas, offered guides across the Bitter Roots, but now the snow laydeep, the horses could not travel. For weeks they lay in camp on theKooskooskie, eating horse meat as the Indians then were doing,waiting, fretting.
It was the middle of June before they made the effort to pass theBitter Roots. Sixty horses they had now, with abundance of jerkedhorse meat, and a half-dozen Nez Perces guides. By the third ofJuly--just three years from the date of the Louisiana Purchase as itwas made known at Mr. Jefferson's simplicity dinner--they were acrossthe Bitter Roots once more, in the pleasant valleys of the easternslope.
"That way," said Sacajawea, pointing, "big falls!"
She meant the short cut across the string of the bow, which would leadover the Continental Divide direct to the Great Falls of the Missouri.Both the leaders had pondered over this short cut, which the NezPerces knew well.
"We must part, Will," said Meriwether Lewis. "It is our duty to learnall we can of this wonderful country. I will take the Indian trailstraight across. Do you go on down the way we came. Pick up our cachesabove the three forks of the Missouri, and then cross over themountains to the Yellowstone. Make boats there, and come on down tothe mouth of that river. You should precede me there, perhaps, by somedays. Wait then until I come."
With little more ado these self-reliant men parted in the middle ofthe vast mountain wilderness. They planned a later junction of theirtwo parties at the mouth of a river which then was less known than theColumbia had been, through a pass which none of them had ever seen.
Lewis had with him nine men, among them Sergeant Gass, the two Fieldsboys, Drouillard and Cruzatte, the voyageurs. Sacajawea, in spite ofher protest, remained with the Clark party, where her wonderfulknowledge of the country again proved invaluable. This band advanceddirectly to the southward by easy and pleasant daily stages.
"That way short path over mountains," said Sacajawea at length, at onepoint of their journey.
She pointed out the Big Hole Trail and what was later known as Clark'sPass over the Continental Divide. They came to a new country, abeautiful valley where the grass was good; but Sacajawea still pointedonward.
"That way," said she, "find boat, find cache!"
She showed them another gap in the hills, as yet unknown; and so ledthem out by a short cut directly to the caches on the Jefferson!
But they could not tarry long. Boots and saddles again, pole andpaddle also, for now some of the men must take to the boats whileothers brought on the horses. At the Three Forks rendezvous they madeyet other changes, for here the boats must be left. Captain Clark mustcross the mountain range to the eastward to find the Yellowstone, ofwhich the Indian girl had told him. Yonder, she said, not quite a fullday's march through a notch in the lofty mountains, they would come tothe river, which ran off to the east.
Not one of them had ever heard of that gap in the hills; there was noone to guide them through it except the Indian girl, whose memory hadhitherto been so positive and so trustworthy. They trusted herimplicitly.
"That way!" she said.
Always she pointed on ahead confidently; and always she was right. Shewas laying out the course of a railroad which one day should come upthe Yellowstone and cross here to the Missouri.
They found it to be no more than eighteen or twenty miles, Sacajawea'sextraordinary short cut between the Missouri and the Yellowstone. Theystruck the latter river below the mouth of its great canon, found goodtimber, and soon were busy felling great cottonwoods to make dugoutcanoes. Two of these, some thirty feet in length, when lashed side byside, served to carry all their goods and some of their party. Therest--Pryor, Shannon, Hall and one or two others--were to come on downwith the horses.
The mounted men did well enough until one night the Crows stole alltheir horses, and left them on foot in the middle of the wilderness.Not daunted, they built themselves boats of bull hide, as they hadseen Indians do, and soon they followed on down the river, they couldnot tell how far, to the rear of the main boat party. With themarvelous good fortune which attended the entire expedition, they hadno accident; and in time they met the other explorers at the mouth ofthe Yellowstone, after traveling nine hundred miles on a separatevoyage of original discovery!
It was on the eighth of August that the last of Clark's boats arrivedat the Yellowstone rendezvous. His men felt now as if they were almostat home. The Mandan villages were not far below. As soon as CaptainLewis should come, they would be on their way, rejoicing. Patient,hardy, uncomplaining, they did not know that they were heroes.
What of Lewis, then gone so long? He and his men were engaged in theyet more dangerous undertaking of exploring the country of the dreadedBlackfeet, known to bear arms obtained from the northern traders. Theyreached the portage of the Great Falls without difficulty, and eagerlyexamined the caches which they had left there. Now they were to dividetheir party.
"Sergeant Gass," said Captain Lewis, "I am going to leave you here.You will get the baggage and the boats below the falls, and takepassage on down the river. Six of you can attend to that. I shall takeDrouillard and the Fields boys with me, and strike off toward thenorth and east, where I fancy I shall find the upper portion ofMaria's River. When you come to the mouth of that river--which youwill remember some of you held to be the real Missouri--you will gointo camp and wait for us. You will remain there until the first dayof September. If by that time we have not returned, you will pass ondown the Missouri to Captain Clark's camp, at the mouth of theYellowstone, and go home with him. By that time it will have becomeevident that we shall not return. I plan to meet you at the mouth ofMaria's River somewhere about the beginning of August."
They parted, and it was almost by a miracle that they ever met again;for now the perils of the wilderness asserted themselves even againstthe marvelous good fortune which had thus far attended them.
Hitherto, practically all the tribes met had been friendly, but nowthey were in the country of the dreaded Blackfeet, who by instinct andtraining were hostile to all whites coming in from the south and east.A party of these warriors was met on the second day of theirnorthbound journey from the Missouri River. Lewis gave the Indianssuch presents as he could, and, as was his custom, told them of hispurpose in traveling through the country. He showed no fear of them,although he saw his own men outnumbered ten to one. The two parties,the little band
of white men and the far more numerous band ofBlackfeet, lay down to sleep that night in company.
But the Blackfeet were unable to resist the temptation to attainsudden wealth by seizing the horses and guns of these strangers.Toward dawn Lewis himself, confident in the integrity of his guests,and dozing for a time, felt the corner of his robe pulled, feltsomething spring on his face, heard a noise. His little dog wasbarking loudly, excitedly.
He was more fully awakened by the sound of a shout, and then by ashot. Springing from his robes, he saw Drouillard and both of theFields boys on their feet, struggling with the savages, who weretrying to wrench their rifles from them.
"Curse you, turn loose of me!" cried Reuben Fields.
He fought for a time longer with his brawny antagonist, till he sawothers coming. Then his hand went to the long knife at his belt, andthe next instant the Blackfoot lay dead at his feet.
Drouillard wrenched his rifle free and stood off his man for a moment,shouting all the time to his leader that the Indians were trying toget the horses. Lewis saw the thieves tugging at the picket-ropes, andhastened into the fray, cursing himself for his own credulity. A giantBlackfoot engaged him, bull-hide shield advanced, battle-ax whirling;but wresting himself free, Lewis fired point-blank into his body, andanother Indian fell dead.
The Blackfeet found they had met their match. They dropped thepicket-ropes and ran as fast as they could, jumped into the river,swam across, and so escaped, leaving the little party of whitesunhurt, but much disturbed.
"Mount, men! Hurry!" Lewis ordered.
As quickly as they could master the frightened horses, his men obeyed.With all thought of further exploration ended, they set out at topspeed, and rode all that day and night as fast as the horses couldtravel. They had made probably one hundred and twenty miles when atlength they came to the mouth of the Maria's River, escaped from themost perilous adventure any of them had had.
Here again, by that strange good fortune which seemed to guide them,they arrived just in time to see the canoes of Gass and his men comingdown the Missouri. These latter had made the grand portage at thefalls, had taken up all the caches, and had brought the contents withthem. The stars still fought for the Volunteers for the Discovery ofthe West.
There was no time to wait. The Blackfeet would be coming soon. Lewisabandoned his horses here. The entire party took to the boats, andhurried down the river as fast as they could, paddling in relays, dayand night. Gaunt, eager, restless, moody, silent, their leader neitherurged his men nor chided them, nor did he refer to the encounter withthe Blackfeet. He did not need to, with Drouillard to describe it tothem all a dozen times.
At times it was necessary for the boats to stop for meat, usually ashort errand in a country alive with game; and, as was his custom,Lewis stepped ashore one evening to try for a shot at some near bygame--elk, buffalo, antelope, whatever offered. He had with himCruzatte, the one-eyed Frenchman. It was now that fortune frownedominously almost for the first time.
The two had not been gone more than a few minutes when the menremaining at the boat heard a shot--then a cry, and more shouting.Cruzatte came running back to them through the bushes, calling out atthe top of his voice:
"The captain! I've keeled him--I've keeled the captain--I've shothim!"
"What is that you're saying?" demanded Patrick Gass. "If you've donethat, you would be better dead yourself!"
He reached out, caught Cruzatte's rifle, and flung it away from him.
"Where is he?" he demanded.
Cruzatte led the way back.
"I see something move on the bushes," said he, "and I shoot. It wasnot elk--it was the captain. _Mon Dieu_, what shall we do?"
They found Captain Lewis sitting up, propped against a clump ofwillows, his legging stripped to the thigh. He was criticallyexamining the path of the bullet, which had passed through the limb.At seeing him still alive, his men gave a shout of joy, and Cruzattereceived a parting kick from his sergeant.
There were actual tears in the eyes of some of the men as theygathered around their commander--tears which touched Meriwether Lewisdeeply.
"It is all right, men!" said he. "Do not be alarmed. Do not reprovethe man too much. The sight of a little blood should not trouble you.We are all soldiers. This is only an accident of the trail, and in ashort time it will be mended. See, the bone is not broken!"
They aided him back to the boats and made a bed upon which he mightlie, his head propped up so that he could see what lay ahead. Othermen completed the evening hunt, and the boats hurried on down theriver. The next day found them fifty miles below the scene of theaccident.
"Sergeant," said Meriwether Lewis, "the natural fever of my wound iscoming on. Give me my little war-sack yonder--I must see if I can findsome medicine."
Gass handed him his bag of leather, and Lewis sought in it for amoment. His hand encountered something that crinkled in thetouch--crinkled familiarly! For one instant he stopped, his lipscompressed as if in bodily pain.
It was another of the mysterious letters!
Before he opened it, he looked at it, frowning, wondering. Whence camethese messages, and how, by whose hand? All of them must have beenwritten before he left St. Louis in May of 1804. Now it was August of1806. There was no human agency outside his own party that could havecarried them. How had they reached him? What messenger had broughtthem? He forgot the fever of his wound in another and greater feverwhich arose in his blood.
He was with his men now, their eyes were on him all the time. Whatshould he do--cast this letter from him into the river? If he did so,he felt that it would follow him mysteriously, pointing to the _corpusdelicti_ of his crime, still insistent on coming to the eye!
His men, therefore, saw their leader casually open a bit of paper.They had seen him do such things a thousand times, since journals andmaps were a part of the daily business of so many of them. What he didattracted no attention.
Captain Lewis would have felt relieved had it attracted more. Beforehe read any of the words that lay before him, in this same delicatehandwriting that he knew so well, he cast a slow and searching gazeupon the face of every man that was turned toward him. In fact, heheld the letter up to view rather ostentatiously, hoping that it wouldevoke some sign; but he saw none.
He had not been in touch with the main party for more than a month. Hehad with him nine men. Which of these had secretly carried the letter?Was it Gass, Cruzatte, Drouillard, Reuben Fields, or McNeal?
He studied their faces alternately. Not an eyelash flickered. The menwho looked at him were anxious only for his comfort. There was notrace of guilty knowledge on any of these honest countenances beforehim, and he who sought such admitted his own failure. Meriwether Lewislay back on his couch in the boat, as far as ever from his solution ofthe mystery.
After all, mere curiosity as to the nature of that mystery was a smallmatter. It seemed of more worth to feel, as he did, that the womanwho had planned this system of surprises for him was one of noordinary mind. And it was no ordinary woman who had written the wordsthat he now read:
SIR AND MY FRIEND:
Almost I am in despair. This is my fifth letter; you receive it, perhaps, some months after your start. I think you would have come back before now, if that had been possible. I had no news of you, and now I dread news. Should you still be gone a year from the time I write this, then I shall know that you were dead. Dead? Yes, I have written that word!
The swift thought comes to me that you will never see this at all--that it may, it must, arrive too late. Yet I must send it, even under that chance. I must write it, though it ruin all my happiness. Shall it come to you too late, others will take it to my husband. Then this secret--the one secret of my life--will be known. Ah, I hope this may come to your eyes, your living eyes; but should it not, _none the less I must write it_.
What matter? If it should be read by any after your death, that would be too late to make differenc
e with you, or any difference for me. After that I should not care for anything--not even that then others would know what I would none might ever know save you and my Creator, so long as we both still lived.
This wilderness which you love, the wilderness to which you fled for your comfort--what has it done for you? Have you found that lonely grave which is sometimes the reward of the adventurer thither? If so, do you sleep well? I shall envy you, if that is true. I swear I often would let that thought come to me--of the vast comfort of the plains, of the mountains--the sweep of the untiring winds, sweet in the trees and grasses--or the perpetual sound of water passing by, washing out, to the voice of its unending murmurs, all memory of our trials, of our sins.
What need now to ask you to come back? What need to reproach you any further? How could I--how can I--with this terrible thought in my soul that I am writing to a man whose eyes cannot see, whose ears cannot hear?
Still, what difference, whether or not you be living? Have not your eyes thus far been blind to me? Have not your ears been deaf to me, even when I spoke to you direct? It was the call of your country as against my call. Was ever thinking woman who could doubt what a strong man would do? I suppose I ought to have known. But oh, the longing of a woman to feel that she is something greater in a man's life even than his deeds and his ambitions--even than his labors--even than his patriotism!
It is hard for us to feel that we are but puppets in the great game of life, of so small worth to any man. How can we women read their hearts--what do we know of men? I cannot say, though I am a married woman. My husband married me. We had our honeymoon--and he went away about the business of his plantations. Does every girl dream of a continuous courtship and find a dull answer in the facts? I do not know.
How freely I write to you, seeing that you are blind and deaf, of that wish of a woman to be the one grand passion of a strong man's life--above all--before even his country! What may once have been my own dream of my capacity to evoke such emotions in the soul of any man I have flung into the scrap-heap of my life. The man, the one man--no! What was I saying, Meriwether Lewis, to you but now, even though you were blind and deaf? I must not--I _must_ not!
Nay, let me dream no more! It is too late now. Living or dead, you are deaf and blind to all that I could ever do for you. But if you be still living, if this shall meet your living eyes, however cold and clear they may be, please, please remember it was not for myself alone that I took on the large ambitions of which I have spoken to you, the large risks engaged with them. Nay, do not reproach me; leave me my woman's right to make all the reproaches. I only wanted to do something for you.
I have not written so freely to any man in all my life. I could not do so now did I not feel in some strange way that by this time--perhaps at this very time--you are either dead or in some extreme of peril. If I _knew_ that you would see this, I could not write it. As it is, it gives me some relief--it is my confessional. How often does a woman ever confess her own, her inner and real heart? Never, I think, to any man--certainly not to any living, present man.
I married; yes. It seemed the ordinary and natural thing to do, a useful, necessary, desirable thing to do. I should not complain--I did that with my eyes well opened and with full counsel of my father. My eyes well opened, but my heart well closed! I took on my duties as one of the species human, my duties as wife, as head of a household, as lady of a certain rank. I did all that, for it is what most women would do. It is the system of society. My husband is content.
What am I writing now? Arguing, justifying, defending? Ah, were it possible that you would read this and come back to me, never, never, though it killed me, would I open my heart to you! I write only to a dead man, I say--to one who can never hear. I write once more to a man who set other things above all that I could have done. Deeds, deeds, what you call your country--your own impulses--these were the things you placed above me. You placed above me this adventuring into the wilderness. Yes, I know what are the real impulses in your man's life. I know what you valued above me.
But you are dead! While you lived, I hoped your conscience was clean. I hope that never once have you descended to any conduct not belonging to Meriwether Lewis of Virginia. I know that no matter what temptation was yours, you would remember that I was Mrs. Alston--and that you were Meriwether Lewis of Virginia.
Nay, I _cannot_ stop! How can you mind my garrulous pen--my vain pen--my wicked, wicked, wicked, shameful pen--since you cannot see what it says?
Ah, I had so hoped once more to see you before it was too late! Should this not reach you, and should it reach others, why, let it go to all the world that Theodosia Burr that was, Mrs. Alston of Carolina that is, once ardently importuned a man to join her in certain plans for the betterment of his fortunes as well as her own; and that you did not care to share in those plans! So I failed. And further--let that also go out to the world--I glory in the truth _that I have failed_!
Yes, that at last is the truth at the bottom of my heart! I have searched it to the bottom, and I have found the truth. I glory in the truth that you have _not_ come back to me. There--have I not said all that a woman could say to a man, living or dead?
Just as strongly as I have urged you to return, just as strongly I have hoped that you would not return! In my soul I wanted to see you go on in your own fashion, following your own dreams and caring not for mine. That was the Meriwether Lewis I had pictured to myself. I shall glory in my own undoing, if it has meant your success.
Holding to your own ambition, keeping your own loyalty, holding your own counsel and your own speech to the end--pushing on through everything to what you have set out to do--that is the man I could have loved! Deeds, deeds, high accomplishments--these in truth are the things which are to prevail. The selfish love of success as success--the love of ease, of money, of power--these are the things women covet _from_ a man--yes, but they are not the things a woman _loves in_ a man. No; it is the stiff-necked man, bound in his own ambition, whom women love, even as they swear they do not.
_Therefore, do not come back to me_, Meriwether Lewis! Do not come--forget all that I have said to you before--do not return until you have done your work! Do not come back to me until you can come content. Do not come to me with your splendid will broken. Let it triumph even over the will of a Burr, not used to yielding, not easily giving up anything desired.
This is almost the last letter I shall ever write to any man in all my life. I wonder who will read it--you, or all the world, perhaps! I wish it might rest with you at the last. Oh, let this thought lie with you as you sleep--you did not come back to me, _and I rejoiced that you did not_!
Tell me, why is it that I think of you lying where the wind is sweet in the trees? Why is it that I think of myself, too, lying at last, with all my doubts composed, all my restless ambitions ended, all my foolish dreams answered--in some place where the sound of the unceasing waters shall wash out from the memory of the world all my secrets and all my sins? Always I hear myself crying:
"I hope I shall not be unhappy, for I do not feel that I have been bad."
Adieu, Meriwether Lewis, adieu! I am glad you can never read this. I am glad that you have not come back. I am glad that I have failed!