Part 35 (1/2)

At seeing hiave a shout of joy, and Cruzatte received a parting kick froeant

There were actual tears in the eyes of soathered around their commander--tears which touched Meriwether Lewis deeply

”It is all right, men!” said he ”Do not be alarht of a little blood should not trouble you

We are all soldiers This is only an accident of the trail, and in a short time it will be mended See, the bone is not broken!”

They aided hiht lie, his head propped up so that he could see what lay ahead Otherhunt, and the boats hurried on down the river The next day found theeant,” said Meriwether Lewis, ”the natural fever ofon Give me my little war-sack yonder--I must see if I can find so of leather, and Lewis sought in it for athat crinkled in the touch--crinkled familiarly! For one instant he stopped, his lips compressed as if in bodily pain

It was another of the mysterious letters!

Before he opened it, he looked at it, frowning, wondering Whence caes, and how, by whose hand? All of them must have been written before he left St Louis in May of 1804 Noas August of 1806 There was no huency outside his own party that could have carried theht thereater fever which arose in his blood

He ith his men now, their eyes were on him all the time What should he do--cast this letter from him into the river? If he did so, he felt that it would follow hi to the _corpus delicti_ of his cri to the eye!

His men, therefore, saw their leader casually open a bit of paper

They had seen his a thousand times, since journals and maps were a part of the daily business of so many of them What he did attracted no attention

Captain Leould have felt relieved had it attracted more Before he read any of the words that lay before hi that he kneell, he cast a slow and searching gaze upon the face of every man that was turned toward him In fact, he held the letter up to view rather ostentatiously, hoping that it would evoke son; but he saw none

He had not been in touch with the main party for more than a month He had 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 men who looked at hiuilty knowledge on any of these honest countenances before hiht such admitted his own failure Meriwether Lewis lay back on his couch in the boat, as far as ever from his solution of the mystery

After all, mere curiosity as to the nature of that mystery was a small matter It seemed of more worth to feel, as he did, that the woman who had planned this system of surprises for him was one of no ordinary mind And it was no ordinary woman who had written the words that 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 h 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 thiseyes; 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 difference with you, or any difference for --not even that then others would knohat I would noneas we both still lived

This wilderness which you love, the wilderness to which you fled for your corave 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 thewinds, sweet in the trees and grasses--or the perpetual sound of water passing by, washi+ng 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 into 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 againstht to have known But oh, the longing of a woreater in a man's life even than his deeds and his ambitions--even than his labors--even than his patriotism!