"Doubtful," said Clark. "The Spanish of the valley are not very well reconciled to this Louisiana sale, and neither are the French. They have been holding all that country in partnership, each people afraid of the other, and both showing their teeth to us. But I hear the commission is doing well at St. Louis, and I presume the transfer will be made this fall or winter. After that they cannot stop us from going on. Tell me, have you heard anything of Colonel Burr's plan? There have come new rumors of the old attempt to separate the West from the government at Washington, and he is said to have agents scattered from St. Louis to New Orleans."
He did not note the sudden flush on his friend's face--indeed, gave him no time to answer, but went on, absorbed in his own executive details.
"What sort of men have you in your party, Merne?"
"Only good ones, I think. Young Shannon and an army sergeant by the name of Gass, Patrick Gass--they should be very good men. I brought on Collins from Maryland and Pete Weiser from Pennsylvania, also good stuff, I think. McNeal, Potts, Gibson--I got those around Carlisle. We need more men."
"I have picked out a few here," said Clark. "You know Kentucky breeds explorers. I have a good blacksmith, Shields, and Bill Bratton is another blacksmith--either can tinker a gun if need be. Then I have John Coalter, an active, strapping chap, and the two Fields boys, whom I know to be good men; and Charlie Floyd, Nate Pryor, and a couple of others--Warner and Whitehouse. We should get the rest at the forts around St. Louis. I want to take my boy York along--a negro is always good-natured under hardship, and a laugh now and then will not hurt any of us."
Lewis nodded assent.
"Your judgment of men is as good as mine, Will. But come, it is September, and the leaves are falling. All my men have the fall hunt in their blood--they will start for any place at any moment. Let us move. Suppose you take the boat on down, and let me go across, horseback, to Kaskaskia. I have some business there, and I will try for a few more recruits. We must have fifty men."
"Nothing shall stop us, Merne, and we cannot start too soon. I want to see fresh grass every night for a year. But you--how can you be content to punish yourself for so long? For me, I am half Indian; but I expected to have heard long ago that you were married and settled down as a Virginia squire, raising tobacco and negroes, like anyone else. Tell me, how about that old affair of which you once used to confide to me when we were soldiering together here, years back? 'Twas a fair New York maid, was it not? From what you said I fancied her quite without comparison, in your estimate, at least. Yet here you are, vagabonding out into a country where you may be gone for years--or never come back at all, for all we know. Have a care, man--pretty girls do not wait!"