human
It has been long since we met, Will, said Meriwether Lewis.
gpt
I have been eating my heart out up at Pittsburgh. I got your letter, and glad enough I was to have it. I had been fearing that I would have to go on alone. Now I feel as if we already had succeeded. I cannot tell you--but I don't need to try.
human
And you, Merne, rejoined William Clark--Captain William Clark, if you please, border fighter, leader of men, one of a family of leaders of men, tall, gaunt, red-headed, blue-eyed, smiling, himself a splendid figure of a man--
gpt
The water is low, complained Lewis,
human
In ten minutes--in five minutes. I will have my boy York go up and get my rifle and my bags.
gpt
Your brother, General Clark, how is he?
human
The truth is, Merne, the general's heart is broken. He thinks that his country has forgotten him.
gpt
Forgotten him? From Detroit to New Orleans--we owe it all to George Rogers Clark. It was he who opened the river from Pittsburgh to New Orleans. He'll not need, now, to be an ally of France again. Once more a member of your family will be in at the finding of a vast new country!
human
Merne, I've sold my farm. I got ten thousand dollars for my place--and so I am off with you, not with much of it left in my pockets, but with a clean bill and a good conscience, and some of the family debts paid. I care not how far we go, or when we come back. I thank Mr. Jefferson for taking me on with you. 'Tis the gladdest time in all my life!
gpt
We are share and share alike, Will, said his friend Lewis, soberly.
human
Tell me, can we get beyond the Mississippi this fall, do you think?
gpt
Doubtful, said Clark.
human
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.
gpt
What sort of men have you in your party, Merne?
human
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.
gpt
I have picked out a few here, said Clark.
human
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.
gpt
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.
human
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!
gpt
What is it, Merne? Pardon me! Did she--not wait?
human
She married, something like three years ago. She is the wife of Mr. Alston, a wealthy planter of the Carolinas, a friend of her father and a man of station. A good marriage for her--for him--for both.