They had passed through the last of the dangerous country of
the Sioux, defying the wild bands whose gantlet they had to run, but
which they had run in safety. Ahead was only what might be called a
pleasure journey, to the end of the river trail.

The men were happy as they lay about their fires, which glowed dully
in the dusk. Each was telling what he presently was going to do, when
he got his pay at old St. Louis, not far below.

William Clark, weary with the day's labor, had excused himself and
gone to his blankets. Lewis, the responsible head of the expedition,
alone, aloof, silent, sat moodily looking into his fire, the victim of
one of his recurring moods of melancholy.

He stirred at length and raised himself restlessly. It was not unusual
for him to be sleepless, and always, while awake, he had with him the
problems of his many duties; but at this hour something unwontedly
disturbing had come to Meriwether Lewis.

He turned once more and bent down, as if figuring out some puzzle of
a baffling trail. Picking up a bit of stick, he traced here and there,
in the ashes at his feet, points and lines, as if it were some problem
in geometry. Uneasy, strange of look, now and again he muttered to
himself.

"Hoh!" he exclaimed at length, almost like an Indian, as if in some
definite conclusion.

He had run his trail to the end, had finished the problem in the
ashes.

"Hoh!" his voice again rumbled in his chest.

And now he threw his tracing-stick away. He sat, his head on one side,
as if looking at some distant star. It seemed that he heard a voice
calling to him in the night, so faintly that he could not be sure. His
face, thin, gaunt, looked set and hard in the light of his little
fire. Something stern, something wistful, too, showed in his eyes,
frowning under the deep brows. Was Meriwether Lewis indeed gone mad?
Had the hardships of the wilderness at last taken their toll of
him--as had sometimes happened to other men?

He rose, limping a little, for he still was weak and stiff from his
wound, though disdaining staff or crotched bough to lean upon. He
looked about him cautiously.

The camp was slumbering. Here and there, stirred by the passing
breeze, the embers of a little fire glowed like an eye in the dark.
The men slept, some under their rude shelters, others in the open
under the stars, each rolled in his robe, his rifle under the flap to
keep it from the dew.

Meriwether Lewis knew the place of eve