XXIX To Washington
There were hurried days at St. Louis, a village that knew not haste before. The skins were sunned and stored in the rooms of Cadet Chouteau. Boxes of specimens were packed for the Government. Captain Lewis opened his trunk and found his papers all wet. The hermetically sealed tin cases that held the precious journals alone had saved these from destruction.
The Captains had their hands full. The restless men must be paid and discharged. Nine of the adventurers within a week after the return to St. Louis sold their prospective land claims for a pittance. Seven of these claims were bought by their fellow soldiers; Sergeant John Ordway took several of the men and settled on the site of the present city of New Madrid.
Robert Frazer received two hundred and fifty dollars for his claim, and prepared to publish his travels,—a volume that never saw the light. In addition to land grants, the men received double pay amounting altogether to eleven thousand dollars.
A grand dinner, given by St. Louis, a ball and farewell, and the Captains were on the way with their Mandan chief, Big White, and his Indians, and Gass, Shannon, Ordway, Pryor, and Bratton.
“The route by which I propose travelling to Washington is by way of Cahokia, Vincennes, Louisville, the Crab Orchard, Fincastle, Staunton, and Charlottesville,” Captain Lewis had written in that letter to Jefferson. “Any letters directed to me at Louisville will most probably meet me at that place.”
With well-filled saddle-bags, the returning heroes crossed to Cahokia and set out across Illinois in the Indian summer of 1806.
Governor Harrison was at Vincennes, and Vigo, and a hundred others to welcome.
“Hurrah for old Kentucky!” cried Clark, as he caught sight of its limestone shores. On many a smiling hilltop, the log cabin had expanded into a baronial country seat, with waxed floors and pianos. Already the stables were full of horses, the halls were full of music.
Clark, Lewis, and Big White climbed the cliff to the Point of Rock. Who but chiefs should visit there?
With newspapers around him, sat George Rogers Clark, following the career of Napoleon. That calm and splendid eye kindled at sight of his brother. His locks had grown longer, his eye a deeper black under the shaggy brows, but the Revolutionary hero shone in every lineament as he took the hands of the two explorers.
With the dashing waters at their feet, upon the lonely Point of Rock, above the Falls of the Ohio, William Clark stopped first to greet his brother from the great expedition. Painters may find a theme here, and future romancers a page in drama.
Without delay, taking his rusty three-cornered chapeau from its peg, and donning his faded uniform, the conqueror of Illinois accompanied the explorers to Locust Grove, ablaze that night with welcome.
Lucy, Fanny, Edmund were there; and Jonathan from Mulberry Hill; Major Croghan, the courtly host of old; and the lad, George Croghan, now in his fifteenth year. All too quickly fled the hours; the hickory flamed and the brass andirons shone not brighter than the happy faces.
Spread around for exhibition were Mandan robes, fleeces of the mountain goat, Clatsop hats, buffalo horns, and Indian baskets, Captain Clark’s “tiger-cat coat,” Indian curios, and skins of grizzly bears,—each article suggestive of adventure surpassing Marco Polo or the Arabian nights. Another huge box, filled with bones for the President, had been left with George Rogers Clark at the Point of Rock.
Louisville received the explorers with bonfires and cannonry. A grand ball was given in their honour, in which the Indians, especially, shone in medals and plumage.
The next day there was a sad visit to Mill Creek, where lamenting parents received the last token and listened to the final word concerning their beloved son, Sergeant Charles Floyd.
A cold wind and a light fall of snow warned them no time must be lost in crossing the Kentucky mountains; but encumbered with the Indian retinue they made slow progress along that atrocious road, on which the followers of Boone had “sometimes paused to pray and sometimes stopped to swear.”
A few days beyond Cumberland Gap, Clark’s heart beat a tattoo; they had come to Fincastle! Among its overhanging vines and trees, the Hancock mansion was in holiday attire,—Harriet Kennerly had just been married to Dr. Radford of Fincastle.
Colonel Hancock had been proud to entertain George Rogers Clark, still more was he now delighted with the visit of the famous explorers.
“La!” exclaimed Black Granny at the announcement of Captain Clark. “Miss Judy?” Black Granny had nursed Miss Judy from the cradle.
Sedately Miss Judy came down the long staircase,—not the child that Clark remembered, but a woman, petite, serious. The chestnut brown curls with a glint of gold were caught with a high back comb, and a sweeping gown had replaced the short petticoats that lately tripped over the foothills of the Blue Ridge.
“My pretty cousin going to marry that ugly man?” exclaimed Harriet, when she heard of the early engagement.
There was nothing effeminate about Clark, nor artificial. His features were rugged almost to plainness; his head was high from the ear to the top, a large brain chamber.
“Absolutely beautiful,” said Judy to herself, associating those bronzed features with endless winds that blew on far-off mountains.
Behind the respectable old Hancock silver, Judy’s mother turned the tea and talked. Turning up his laced sleeves to carve the mutton, Colonel Hancock asked a thousand questions regarding that wonderful journey.
“We passed the winter on the Pacific, then crossed the mountains, and my division came down the Yellowstone,” Clark was saying. “By the way, Judy, I have named a river for you,—the Judith.”
A peal of laughter rang through the dining-room.
“Judith! Judith, did you say? Why, Captain Clark, my name is Julia.”
Clark was confounded. He almost feared Judy was making fun of him.
“Is it, really, now? I always supposed Judy stood for Judith.”
Again rang out the infectious peal, in which Clark himself joined; but to this day rolls the river Judith in Montana, named for Clark’s mountain maid of Fincastle.
“That I should live to see you back from the Pacific!” was Aunt Molly’s greeting at “The Farm,” at Charlottesville. “I reckoned the cannibal savages would eat you. We looked for nothing less than the fate of Captain Cook.”
But Maria, whose eyes had haunted Lewis in many a long Montana day, seemed strangely shy and silent. In fact, she had another lover, perhaps a dearer one.
Uncle Nicholas was sick. He was growing old, but still directed the negroes of a plantation that extended from Charlottesville to the Fluvanna.
It was sunset when Captain Lewis reached the home at Locust Hill, and was folded to his mother’s bosom. With daily prayer had Lucy Meriwether followed her boy across the Rocky Mountains.
Meriwether’s little pet sister, Mary Marks, had blossomed into a bewitching rose.
“Here is a letter from the President.”
Captain Lewis read his first message from Jefferson in more than two years and a half.
Turning to Big White, the chief, who at every step had gazed with amazement at the white man’s country,—
“The President says ‘Tell my friend of Mandan that I have already opened my arms to receive him.”
“Ugh! Ugh!” commented Big White, with visions of barbaric splendour in his untutored brain.
That afternoon the entire party rode over to Monticello to show the chief the President’s Indian hall, where all their gifts and tokens had been arranged for display. The next day, by Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Alexandria, the party set out for the national capital. Every step of the way was a triumphal progress.