o
forget the matter in his mind. Presently he was again pacing apart,
stopping now and then to stare out over the forest.

"I must have a place to write," said he at length. "I shall be awake
for a time tonight, occupied with business matters of importance.
Where is Major Neely? Where are the other men? Why have they not come
up?"

Peria could not or did not answer these questions, but sullenly went
about the business of making his master as comfortable as he might,
and then departed to his own quarters, down the hill, in another
building. The old backwoods woman herself withdrew to the other
apartment, beyond the open space of the double cabin.

The soft, velvet darkness of night in the forest now came on apace--a
night of silence. There was not even the call of a tree toad. The
voice of the whippoorwill was stilled at that season of the year. If
there were human beings awake, alert, at that time, they made no
sound. Meriwether Lewis was alone--alone in the wilderness again. Its
silences, its mysteries, drew about him.

But now he stood, not enjoying in his usual fashion the familiar
feeling of the night in the forest, the calm, the repose it
customarily brought to him. He stood looking intently, as if he
expected some one--nay, indeed, as if he saw some one--as if he saw a
face! What face was it?

At last he made his way across the room to the heavy saddle-case which
had been placed there. He flung the lid open, and felt among the
contents. It seemed to him there was not so much within the case as
there should have been. He missed certain papers, and resolved to ask
Peria about them. He could not find the little bags of coin which he
expected; but he found the watch, lying covered in a corner of the
case. He drew it out and, stepping toward the flickering candle,
opened it, gazing fixedly at the little silhouette cut round to fit in
the back of the case.

It was a face that he had seen before--a hundred times he had gazed
thus at it on the far Western trails.

He brought the little portrait close up to his eyes--but not close to
his lips. No, he did not kiss the face of the woman who once had
written to him:

You must not kiss my picture, because I am in your power.

Meriwether Lewis had won his long fight! He had mastered the human
emotions of his soul at last. The battle had been such that he sat
here now, weak and spent. He sat looking at the face which had meant
so much to him all these years.