"Shannon, go get the men!"
It was midnight. For more than an hour Meriwether Lewis had sat, his head drooped, in silence.
"We are going to start?" Shannon's face lightened eagerly. "We'll be off at sunup?"
"Before that. Get the men--we'll start now! I'll meet you at the wharf."
Eager enough, Shannon hastened away on his midnight errand. Within an hour every man of the little party was at the water front, ready for departure. They found their leader walking up and down, his head bent, his hands behind him.
It was short work enough, the completion of such plans as remained unfinished. The great keel-boat lay completed and equipped at the wharf. The men lost little time in stowing such casks and bales as remained unshipped. Shannon stepped to his chief.
"All's aboard, sir," said he. "Shall we cast off?"
Without a word Lewis nodded and made his way to his place in the boat. In the darkness, without a shout or a cheer to mark its passing, the expedition was launched on its long journey.
Slowly the boat passed along the waterfront of Pittsburgh town. Here rose gauntly, in the glare of torch or camp fire, the mast of some half-built schooner. Houseboats were drawn up or anchored alongshore, long pirogues lay moored or beached, or now and again a giant broadhorn, already partially loaded with household goods, common carrier for that human flood passing down the great waterway, stood out blacker than the shadows in which it lay.
Here and there camp fires flickered, each the center of a ribald group of the hardy rivermen. Through the night came sounds of roistering, songs, shouts. Arrested, pent, dammed up, the lusty life of that great waterway leading into the West and South scarce took time for sleep.
The boat slipped on down, now crossing a shaft of light flung on the water from some lamp or fire, now blending with the ghostlike shadows which lay in the moonless night. It passed out of the town itself, and edged into the shade of the forest that swept continuously for so many leagues on ahead.
"Hello, there!" called a voice through the darkness, after a time. "Who goes there?"
The splash of a sweep had attracted the attention of someone on shore. The light of a camp fire showed.
Every one in the boat looked at the leader, but none vouchsafed a reply to the hail.
"Ahoy there, the boat!" insisted the same voice.
"Shall I fire on yez to make yez answer a civil question? Come ashore wance--I can lick the best of yez in three minutes, or me name's not Patrick Gass!"