e they returned. Here is where
William Clark did his great work as the first Indian Commissioner. Here
is where poor Meriwether Lewis started east, three years after he had
finished his great journey, and met his tragic death in the forests of
Tennessee. No one will know what that man thought. Perhaps even then he
was pondering on the ingratitude of republics.

"But here is one thing which I wish every admirer of Lewis and Clark
would read and remember--you can remember it, young friends, if you
please. It is what Meriwether Lewis wrote, out there in the mountains
near the Continental Divide, when he made up his _Journal_ on the
evening of his birthday. Write it down, boys, just as he wrote it, ill
spelling and all, so that you may see what he was doing and what he was
thinking part of the time at least:

"'To-day I had the raw-hides put in the water in order to cut them
in throngs proper for lashing the packages and forming the
necessary geer for pack horses, a business which I fortunately had
not to learn on this occasion. Drewyer Killed one deer this
evening. a beaver was also caught on by one of the party. I had the
net arranged and set this evening to catch some trout which we
could see in great abundance at the bottom of the river.

"'This day I completed my thirty first year, and conceived that I
had in all human probability now existed about half the period
which I am to remain in this Sublunary world. I reflected that I
had as yet done but little, very little, indeed, to further the
hapiness of the human race, or to advance the information of the
succeeding generation. I viewed with regret the many hours I have
spent in indolence, and now soarly feel the want of that
information which those hours would have given me had they been
judiciously expended. but since they are past and cannot be
recalled, I dash from me the gloomy thought, and resolved in
future, to redouble my exertions and at least indeavour to promote
those two primary objects of human existence, by giving them the
aid of that portion of talents which nature and fortune have
bestoed on me; or in future, to live for mankind, as I have
heretofore lived for myself.'

"So there you are, young men," concluded Uncle Dick, rising and reaching
for his hat as the train began to near the environs of the busy city.
"If you must think of something striking, something wo