Part Two Chapter 13 The News

"Aim! Fire!"

The volley of salutation blazed out even with the chorus of the voyageurs' cheers. And cheers repeated and unceasing greeted them as they stepped from their boats to the wharf. In an instant they were half overpowered.

"Come with me!"

"No, with me!"

"With me!"

A score of eager voices of the first men of St. Louis claimed the privilege of hospitality for them. It was almost by force that Pierre Chouteau bore them away to his castle on the hill. And always questions, questions, came upon them--ejaculations, exclamations.

"Ma foi!" exclaimed more than one pretty French maiden. "Such men--such splendid men--savages, yet white! See! See!"

They had gone away as youths, these two captains; they had come back men. Four thousand miles out and back they had gone, over a country unmapped, unknown; and they brought back news--news of great, new lands. Was it any wonder that they stood now, grave and dignified, feeling almost for the first time the weight of what they had done?

They passed over the boat-landing and across the wharf, approaching the foot of the rocky bluff above which lay the long street of St. Louis. Silent, as was his wont, Meriwether Lewis had replied to most of the greetings only with the smile which so lighted up his face. But now, suddenly, he ceased even to smile. His eye rested not upon the faces of those acclaiming friends, but upon something else beyond them.