"The red-headed young man is not so bad," said one of the white news-bearers at the Assiniboine post. "He is willing to parley, and he seems disposed to be amiable. But the other, the one named Lewis--I can do nothing with him. For some reason he seems to be hostile to the British interests. He speaks well, and is a man of presence and education, but he is bitter against us, and I cannot handle him. We must use force to stop that man!"
"Agreed, then!" said his master, laughing lustily, for, safe in his own sanctuary, he had not seen these men himself. "We shall use force, as we have before. We will excite the savages against them this winter. If they will listen to us, and turn back in the spring--all of them, not part of them--very well. If they will not listen to reason, then we shall use such means as we need to stop them."
Of this conversation the two young American officers, one of Virginia, the other of Kentucky, knew nothing at all. But they held council of their own, as was their fashion--a council of two, sitting by their camp fire; and while others talked, they acted.
Before November was a week old, the axes were ringing among the cottonwoods. The men were carrying big logs toward the cleared space shown to them, and while Meriwether Lewis worked at his journal and his scientific records, William Clark, born soldier and born engineer, was going forward with his little fortress.
Trenches were cut, the logs were ended up--taller pickets than any one of that country ever had seen before. A double row of cabins was built inside the stockade. A great gate was furnished, proof against assault. A bastion was erected in one corner, mounting the swivel piece so that it might be fired above the top of the wall. A little more work of chinking the walls, of flooring the cabins, of making chimneys of wattle and clay--and presto, before the winter had well settled down, the white explorers were housed and fortified and ready for what might come.
The Mandans sat and watched them in wonder. Jussaume, the French trader, shook his head. In all his experience on the trail he had seen nothing savoring quite so much of preparedness and celerity.
Among all the posts to the northward and eastward the word went out, carried by dog runners.
"They have built a great house of tall logs," said the Indians. "They have put the thing that thunders on top of the wall. They never sleep. Each day they exercise with their rifles under their arms. They have long knives on their belts. They carry hatchets that are sharp enough to shave bark. Their medicine is strong!