"Done!" said he.
He reached up to the box that he had indicated, pressed down a little catch, opened the back and looked in. Again an exclamation escaped him.
He put in a hand gingerly, and, tenderly imprisoning the bird which he found therein, drew it forth, his long fingers eagerly lifting its wings, examining its legs.
It could easily be seen that the box was arranged with a door on a tripping-latch, so that the pigeon, on entering, would imprison itself. It was apparent that Mr. Jefferson was depending upon the natural homing instinct of his carrier pigeons to bring him some message.
"I told them," said he, "to loose a half-dozen birds at once. See! See!"
He unrolled from one leg of the prisoner a little cylinder of paper covered with tinfoil and tied firmly in its place. It was the first wireless message ever received at Washington. None since that time has carried a greater burden. It announced a transaction in empires.
Mr. Jefferson read, and spread out the paper that his aide might read: General Bonaparte signed May 2--Fifteen millions--Rejoice!
In no wider phrasing than that came the news of the great Louisiana Purchase, by virtue of which this republic--whether by chance, by result of greed warring with greed, or through the providence of Almighty God, who shall say?--gained the great part of that vast and incalculably valuable realm which now reaches from the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean. What wealth that great empire held no man had dreamed, nor can any dream today; for, a century later, its story is but beginning.
Century on century, that story still will be in the making. A home for millions of the earth's best, a hope for millions of the earth's less fortunate--granary of the peoples, mint of the nations, birthplace and growing-ground of the new race of men--who could have measured that land then--who could measure it today?
And its title passed, announced in seven words, carried by a bird wandering in the air, but bound unerringly to the ark of God's covenant with man--the covenant of hope and progress.
Thomas Jefferson stretched out his right hand to meet that of Meriwether Lewis. Their clasp was strong and firm. The eye of each man blazed.
"Mr. Jefferson," said Meriwether Lewis, "this is your monument!"
"And yours," was the reply. "Come, then!"
He turned to the stairs, the pigeon still fondled in his arm. That bird--a white one, with slate-blue tips to its wings--never needed to labor again, for Mr. Jefferson kept it during its life, and long after its death.
"Come now," he said, as he began to descend the ladder once more. "The bird was loosed yesterday, late in the afternoon. It has done its sixty or seventy-five miles an hour for us, counting out time lost in the night. The ship which brought this news docked at New York yesterday. The post stages carrying it hither cannot arrive before tomorrow. This is news--the greatest of news that we could have. Yesterday--this morning--we were a young and weak republic. Tomorrow we shall be one of the powers of the world. Go, now--you have been held in leash long enough, and the time to start has come. Tomorrow you will go westward, to that new country which now is ours!"