rth remembering,
out of all the pleasant memories you hold from our little journey this
year--you Young Alaskans, now beginning to explore the history of your
own wonderful country--set down this picture of Captain Meriwether
Lewis, thirty-one years old, with more responsibilities, more of
consequences, more future, on his shoulders right then than any other
officer of our army ever had, sitting there by his little fire writing
in his notebook the same as you, Rob, and you, Jesse, and you, John,
have written in yours--and after that, remember what he wrote. Not so
very conceited, was he?

"There were two men who were not thinking of politics nor of personal
profit in any way. They did not hunt for advancement, they let that hunt
them. They were not working for money; they never had much money, either
one of them. They were not working for glory; they never had much glory,
either of them; they always lacked the recognition they ought to have
had, and they are almost forgotten to-day, as they ought not to be. They
did their work because it was there to do, out of a sense of duty; they
were content with that.

"So now out of all our travels up to this date, I don't know that there
is any experience we've had that will bring us a much bigger lesson than
this one. Write it in your notebooks--what Meriwether Lewis wrote in his
notebook, that day in the mountains. When you are thirty-one, check back
in your notebooks and see if you can write what he could.

"Yes, I hope that you may resolve in future to 'redouble your
exertions.' I hope you may give a 'portion of the talents which nature
and fortune have bestowed on you,' for the sake of mankind--for the sake
of your country, young gentlemen, and not wholly for the sake of
yourselves."

The train rolled into the great railway station. Wondering onlookers
stopped for a moment and turned as they saw three lean, sunbrowned boys
stand at attention and give the Scout salute to the older man who turned
to them and, smiling, snapped his hand into the regulation salute of the
Army.

And so, as Jesse smilingly said, the Company of Volunteers for
Northwestern Discovery disbanded for that year.

THE END

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:

1. Words with one or more letters enclosed in {} indicate that the
original word, in the book, had those characters in superscript.

2. No changes have been made in the spelling, punctuation or
capitalization in the section