William Clark himself arose and strolled to his own blanket-roll, spread it out, and lay down beneath the sky to sleep. Meriwether Lewis sought to follow his example, and spread open his robe and blankets close to the fire. As he leaned back, he felt something hard and crackling under his hand, and looked down.
It was his custom to carry in his blankets, for safekeeping, his long spyglass, a pair of dry moccasins and a buckskin tunic. These articles were here, as he expected to find them. Yet here among them was a folded and sealed envelope--a letter! He had not placed it here; yet here it was.
He caught it up in his hand, looked at it wonderingly, kicked the ends of the embers together so that they flamed up, bent forward to read the superscription--and paused in amazement. Well enough he knew the firm, upright, characterful hand which addressed this missive to him: TO CAPTAIN MERIWETHER LEWIS.--ON THE TRAIL IN THE WEST.
A feeling somewhat akin to awe fell upon Meriwether Lewis. He felt a cold prickling along his spine. It was for him, yes--but whence had it come? There had been no messenger from outside the camp. For one brief instant it seemed, indeed, as if this bit of paper--which of all possible gifts of the gods he would most have coveted--had dropped from the heavens themselves at his feet here in the savage wilderness. His heart had been on the point of breaking, it seemed to him--and it had come to comfort him! It was from her. It ran thus: DEAR SIR AND FRIEND: Greetings to you, wherever you may be when this shall find you. Are you among the Gauls, the Goths, the Visigoths, the Huns, the Vandals, or the Cimbri? Wherever you be, our hopes and faith go with you. You are, as I fancy, in a desert, a wilderness, worth no man's owning. Life passes meantime. To what end, my friend?
I fancy you in the deluge, in the hurricane, in the blaze of the sun, or in the bleak winds, alone, cheerless, perhaps athirst, perhaps knowing hunger. I know that you will meet these things like a man. But to what end--what is the purpose of all this? You have left behind you all that makes life worth while--fortune, fame, life, ambition, honor--to go away into the desert. At what time are you going to turn back and come to us once more?
Oh, if only I had the right--if only I dared--if only I were in a position to lay some command on you to bring you back! Methinks then I would. You could do so much for us all--so much for me. It would mean so much to my own happiness if you were here.