they took boat across the river
to the old Kaskaskia trail, and crossed the Illinois country by horse
to the Falls of the Ohio, where the family of William Clark awaited
him. Here was much holiday, be sure; but not even here did they pause
long, for they must be on their way to meet their chief at Washington.

Their little cavalcade, growing larger now, passed on across Kentucky,
over the gap in the Cumberlands, down into the country of the Virginia
gentry. Here again they were feted and dined and wined so long as they
would tarry. It was specially difficult for them to leave Colonel
Hancock, at Fincastle. Here they must pause and tell how they had
named certain rivers in the West--the one for Maria Woods; another for
Judith Hancock--the Maria's and Judith Rivers of our maps today.

Here William Clark delayed yet a time. He found in the charms of the
fair Judith herself somewhat to give him pause. Soon he was to take
her as his bride down the Ohio to yonder town of St. Louis, for whose
fame he had done so much, and was to do so much more.

Toward none of the fair maids who now flocked about them could
Meriwether Lewis be more than smiling gallant, though rumors ran that
either he or William Clark might well-nigh take his pick. He was alike
to all of them in his courtesy.

One thought of eager and unalloyed joy rested with him. He was soon to
see his mother. In time he rode down from the hilltops of old
Albemarle to the point beyond the Ivy Depot where rose the gentle
eminence of Locust Hill, the plantation of the Lewis family.

Always in the afternoon, in all weathers, his mother sat looking down
the long lane to the gate, as if she expected that one day a certain
figure would appear. Sometimes, old as she was, she dozed and
dreamed--just now she had done so. She awoke, and saw standing before
her, as if pictured in her dream, the form of her son, in bodily
presence, although at first she did not accept him as such.

"My son!" said she at length, half as much in terror as in joy.
"Merne!"

He stooped down and took her grayed head in his hands as she looked up
at him. She recalled other times when he had come from the forest,
from the wilderness, bearing trophies in his hands. He bore now
trophies greater, perhaps, than any man of his age ever had brought
home with him. What Washington had defended was not so great as that
which Lewis won. It required them both to make an America for us
haggling and unworthy fol