You are so kind as to offer me a place equal in command with you--I accept not because of the Rank, which is no moving consideration, eather for you or for me--but because I see in the jenerosity of the man proposing such a division of his own Honors, the best assurance of success.
You will find me at or near the Falls of the Ohio awaiting the arrival of your party, which I taik it will be in early August or the Midel of that month.
Pray convey to Mr. Jefferson my humble and obedient respects, and thanks for this honor wh. I shall endeavor to merit as best lies within my powers.
With all affec'n, I remain, Your friend, WM. CLARK.
P. S.--God alone knows how mutch this all may mean to You and me, Merne--WILL.
Clark, then, was to meet him at the Falls of the Ohio, and he, too, counseled haste. Lewis drove his drunken, lazy workmen in the shipyards as hard as he might, week after week, yet found six weeks elapsed before at last he was in any wise fitted to set forth. The delay fretted him, even though he received word from his chief bidding him not to grieve over the possible loss of a season in his start, but to do what he might and to possess his soul in patience and in confidence.
Recruits of proper sort for his purposes did not grow on trees, he found, but he added a few men to his party now and then, picking them slowly, carefully. One morning, while engaged in his duties of supervising the work in progress at the shipyards, he had his attention attracted to a youth of some seventeen or eighteen years, who stood, cap in hand, at a little distance, apparently too timid to accost him.
"What is it, my son?" said he. "Did you wish to see me?"
The boy advanced, smiling.
"You do not know me, sir. My name is Shannon--George Shannon. I used to know you when you were stationed here with the army. I was a boy then."
"You are right--I remember you perfectly. So you are grown into a strapping young man, I see!"
The boy twirled his cap in his hands.
"I want to go along with you, Captain," said he shyly.
"What? You would go with me--do you know what is our journey?"
"No. I only hear that you are going up the Missouri, beyond St. Louis, into new country. They say there are buffalo there, and Indians. 'Tis too quiet here for me--I want to see the world with you."