"Aye, the fever!"
Silence fell as they stood there in the night. The boy went on, half tremblingly: "Please, please, Captain Lewis, don't call me a coward! I don't believe I am. I was trying to do something for you--for both of you. It was always on my mind about these letters. I did my best and now----"
And now it was the eye of Meriwether Lewis that suddenly was wet; it was his voice that trembled.
"Boy," said he, "I am your officer. Your officer asks your pardon. I have tried myself. I was guilty. Will you forget this?"
"Not a word to a soul in the world, Captain!" broke out Shannon. "About a woman, you see, we do not talk."
"No, Mr. Shannon, about a woman we gentlemen do not talk. But now tell me, boy, what can I do for you--what can I ever do for you?"
"Nothing in the world, Captain--but just one thing."
"What is it?"
"Please, sir, tell me that you don't think me a coward!"
"A coward? No, Shannon, you are the bravest fellow I ever met!"
The hand on the boy's shoulder was kindly now. The right hand of Captain Meriwether Lewis sought that of Private George Shannon. The madness of the trail, of the wilderness--the madness of absence and of remorse--had swept by, so that Lewis once more was officer, gentleman, just and generous man.
Shannon stooped and picked up the coat that his captain had cast from him. He held it up, and aided his commander again to don it. Then, saluting, he marched off to his bivouac bed.
From that day to the end of his life, no one ever heard George Shannon mention a word of this episode. Beyond the two leaders of the party, none of the expedition ever knew who had played the part of the mysterious messenger. Nor did any one know, later, whence came the funds which eventually carried George Shannon through his schooling in the East, through his studies for the bar, and into the successful practise which he later built up in Kentucky's largest city.
Meriwether Lewis, limp and lax now, shivering in the chill under the reaction from his excitement, turned away, stepped back to his own lodge, and contrived a little light, after the frontier fashion--a rag wick in a shallow vessel of grease. With this uncertain aid he bent down closer to read the finely written lines, which ran: MY FRIEND: This is my last letter to you. This is the one I have marked Number Six--the last one for my messenger.
Yes, since you have not returned, now I know you never can. Rest well, then, sir, and let me be strong to bear the news when at length it comes, if it ever shall come. Let the winds and the waters sound your requiem in that wilderness which you loved more than me--which you loved more than fame or fortune, honor or glory for yourself. The wilderness! It holds you. And for me--when at last I come to lay me down, I hope, too, some wilderness of wood or waters will be around me with its vast silences.