an, he'll go to make trouble for you. He
is going for send word to Rocheblave, the most boss trader on Lake
Superior, on Fort William. They are going for send a man to beat
you over the mountain--I know!"

"'Tis a long road from here to the middle of Lake Superior's north
shore," said Meriwether Lewis. "It will be a long way back from there
in the spring. While they are planning to start, already we shall be
on our way."

"I know the man they'll send," went on Jussaume. "Simon Fraser--I know
him. Long time he'll want to go up the Saskatchewan and over the
mountain on the ocean."

"We'll race Mr. Fraser to the ocean," said Meriwether Lewis; "him or
any other man. While he plans, we shall be on our way!"

Well enough the Northern traders knew the meaning of this American
expedition into the West. If it went on, all the lower trade was lost
to Great Britain forever. The British minister, Merry, had known it.
Aaron Burr had known it. This expedition must be stopped! That was the
word which must go back to Montreal, back to London, along the trail
which ended here at the crossroads of the Missouri.

"The red-headed young man is not so bad," said one of the white
news-bearers at the Assiniboine post. "He is willing to parley, and he
seems disposed to be amiable. But the other, the one named Lewis--I
can do nothing with him. For some reason he seems to be hostile to the
British interests. He speaks well, and is a man of presence and
education, but he is bitter against us, and I cannot handle him. We
must use force to stop that man!"

"Agreed, then!" said his master, laughing lustily, for, safe in his
own sanctuary, he had not seen these men himself. "We shall use
force, as we have before. We will excite the savages against them this
winter. If they will listen to us, and turn back in the spring--all of
them, not part of them--very well. If they will not listen to reason,
then we shall use such means as we need to stop them."

Of this conversation the two young American officers, one of Virginia,
the other of Kentucky, knew nothing at all. But they held council of
their own, as was their fashion--a council of two, sitting by their
camp fire; and while others talked, they acted.

Before November was a week old, the axes were ringing among the
cottonwoods. The men were carrying big logs toward the cleared space
shown to them, and while Meriwether Lewis worked at his journal and
his scientific records, William Clark, bor