Yes, there it was--the old fur-shed, the storage-house of the traders here on the wharf, just as he had left it two years before! The door was closed. What lay beyond it?
Lewis shuddered, as if caught with chill, as he looked at yonder door. Just there she had stood, more than two years ago, when he started out on this long journey. There he had kissed that face which he had left in tears--he saw it now! All the glory of his safe return, all the wonderful results which it must mean, he would have given now, could he have had back that picture for a different making.
"My matches--my thermometers--my instruments--how did they perform?"
The speaker was Dr. Saugrain, eager to meet again his friends.
"Perfect, doctor, perfect! We have some of the matches yet. As to the thermometers, we broke the last one before we reached the sea."
"You found the sea? Mon Dieu!"
"We found the Pacific. We found the Columbia, the Yellowstone--many new rivers. We have found a new continent--made a new geography. We passed the head of the Missouri. We found three great mountain ranges."
"The beaver--did you find the beaver yonder?" demanded the voice of a swarthy man who had attended them.
It was Manuel Liza, fur-trader, his eyes glowing in his interest in that reply.
"Beaver?" William Clark waved a hand. "How many I could not tell you! Thousands and millions--more beaver than ever were known in the world before. Millions of buffalo--elk in droves--bears such as you never saw--antelope, great horned sheep, otters, muskrat, mink--the greatest fur country in all the world. We could not tell you half!"
"Your men, will they be free to make return up the river with trading parties?"
William Clark smiled at the keenness of the old French trader.
"You could not possibly have better men," said he.
The men themselves shook their heads in despair. Yes, they said, they had found a thousand miles of country ready to be plowed. They had found any quantity of hardwood forests and pine groves. They had seen rivers packed with fish until they were half solid--more fish than ever were in all the world before. They had found great rivers which led far back to the heart of the continent. They had seen trees larger than any man ever had seen--so large that they hardly could be felled by an ax.
They had found a country where in the winter men perished, and another where the winters were not cold, and where the bushes grew high as trees. They had found all manner of new animals never known before--in short, a new world. How could they tell of it?