The little Indian dog sat on the table, silent, motionless, looking at its master, whose head was bowed upon his arms. Now and then it had stooped as if it would have looked in his face, but dared not, if for very excess of love. It turned an inquiring eye to the door, which, after a time, opened.
William Clark, silent, stood once more at the side of his friend. He looked on the sad and haggard face which was turned toward him, and fell back. His eye caught sight of the folded paper crushed between Lewis's fingers. He asked no questions, but he knew.
"Enough!" broke out Meriwether Lewis hoarsely. "No more of this--we must be gone! Are the men ready? Why do we delay? Why are we not away for the journey home?"
So impatient, so incoherent, did his speech seem that for a time Clark almost feared lest his friend's reason might have been affected. But he only stood looking at Lewis, ready to be of such aid as might be.
"In two hours, Merne," said he, "we will be on our way."
It was now near the end of March. They dated and posted up their bulletins. They had done their task. They had found the great river, they had found the sea, they had mapped the way across the new continent. Their glorious work had gloriously been done.
Such was their joy at starting home again, the boatmen disregarded the down-coming current of the great waters--they sang at the paddles, jested. Only their leader was silent and unsmiling, and he drove them hard. Short commons they knew often enough before they reached the mouth of the Walla Walla, where they found friendly Indians who gave them horse meat--which seemed exceedingly good food.
The Nez Percés, whose country was reached next beyond the Walla Wallas, offered guides across the Bitter Roots, but now the snow lay deep, the horses could not travel. For weeks they lay in camp on the Kooskooskie, eating horse meat as the Indians then were doing, waiting, fretting.
It was the middle of June before they made the effort to pass the Bitter Roots. Sixty horses they had now, with abundance of jerked horse meat, and a half-dozen Nez Percés guides. By the third of July--just three years from the date of the Louisiana Purchase as it was made known at Mr. Jefferson's simplicity dinner--they were across the Bitter Roots once more, in the pleasant valleys of the eastern slope.
"That way," said Sacajawea, pointing, "big falls!"
She meant the short cut across the string of the bow, which would lead over the Continental Divide direct to the Great Falls of the Missouri. Both the leaders had pondered over this short cut, which the Nez Percés knew well.