hing 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
wh