"

"As to that," said Pryor, "belike the Ohio and Kentucky men could
serve a turn as well as the Irish or the French. Old Kaintuck has to
help out the others, the way she did in the French and Indian War!"

"Well," broke in Peter Weiser, joining them as they argued, "I am from
Pennsylvania; but I am half Virginian, and there are some others from
the Old Dominion. When you are all done, call on us--ole Virginny
never tires!"

The contagion of their light-heartedness, their loyalty and devotion,
came as solace to the heart of Meriwether Lewis. He smiled in spite of
himself, his eye kindling with confidence and admiration as he looked
over his men.

They were stripping for their day's work, ready for mud or water or
sun, as the case might be. Amidships, on the highest locker on the
barge, one of the Kentuckians was flapping his arms lustily and giving
the cockcrow, the river challenge of frontier days. Others seated
themselves at the long sweeps of the barge, while yet others were
manning the pirogues.

A few moments later, with joyous shouts, they were on their way once
more--and not setting their faces toward home. In an hour they were
above the first long bend. The wilderness had closed behind them. No
trace of the Indian village was left, no sight of the lingering smoke
of their last camp fires.

Faithfully, patiently, day by day, they held their way, sustained by
the renewed fascination of adventure, hardened and inured to risk and
toil alike. The distance behind them lengthened so enormously that
they began to figure upon the unknown rather than the known.

"We surely must be almost across now!" said some of the men.

All of them were sore distressed over the loss of Shannon. Two weeks
had passed since they left the Yankton Sioux, and four times the
faithful trailers had come back to the boats with no trace of the
missing one.

"It certainly is in the off chance now," assented William Clark
seriously, one day as they lay in the noon encampment. "But perhaps he
may be among the natives somewhere, and we may hear of him when we
come back--if ever we do."

"If he got by the Teton Sioux, and kept on up the river, in time he
would find us somewhere among the Mandans," said Meriwether Lewis.
"But we will try once more before we give him up. Send a man to the
top of the bluff with my spyglass."

Busy in their labors over their maps, and in the recording of their
compass bearings, for half an hour they forgot