o have sixteen
hundred acres of land, each of you. You, my son, will be Governor
Lewis of the new Territory of Louisiana; and your friend is not
Captain Clark but General Clark, agent of all the Indian tribes of the
West!"

In silence the hand of each of the young men went out to the
President. Then their own eyes met, and their hands. They were not to
be separated after all--they were to work together yonder in St.
Louis!

"Governor--General--I welcome you back! You will come back to your old
rooms here in my family, Merne, and we will find a place for your
friend. What we have here is at the service of both of you. You are
the guests of the nation!"

CHAPTER XV

MR. JEFFERSON'S ADVICE

"Merne, my boy," said Thomas Jefferson, when at length they two were
alone once more in the little office, "I cannot say what your return
means to me. You come as one from the grave--you resurrect another
from the grave."

"Meaning, Mr. Jefferson?----"

"You surely have heard that my administration is in sad disrepute?
There is no man in the country hated so bitterly as myself. We are
struggling on the very verge of war."

"I heard some talk in the West, Mr. Jefferson," hesitated Meriwether
Lewis.

"Yes, they called this Louisiana Purchase, on which I had set my
heart, nothing but extravagance. The machinations of Colonel Burr have
added nothing to its reputation. General Jackson is with Burr, and
many other strong friends. And meantime you know where Burr himself
is--in the Richmond jail. I understand that his friend, Mr. Merry, has
gone yonder to visit him. Our country is degenerated to be no more
than a scheming-ground, a plotting-place, for other powers. You come
back just in the nick of time. You have saved this administration!
You bring back success with you. If the issue of your expedition were
anything else, I scarce know what would be my own case here. For
myself, that would have mattered little; but as to this country for
which I have planned so much, your failure would have cost us all the
Mississippi Valley, besides all the valley of the Missouri and the
Columbia. Yes, had you not succeeded, Aaron Burr would have succeeded!
Instead of a great republic reaching from ocean to ocean, we should
have had a scattered coterie of States of no endurance, no continuity,
no power. Thank God for the presence of one great, splendid thing
gloriously done! You cannot, do not, begin to measure its importance."

"We a