something more for me. You know I spoke in doubt."

"Listen, Merne!" replied William Clark. "There is no woman in the
world worth the misery this one has put on you. It is a thing
execrable, unspeakable!"

His friend looked him steadily in the eyes.

"Rebuke not her, but me!" he said. "This letter asks me to come back
to kiss away a woman's tears. Will, I was the cause of those tears. I
can tell you no more. What _I_ did was a thing execrable,
unspeakable--I, your friend, did that!"

William Clark, more genuinely troubled than ever in his life before,
was dumb.

"My future is forfeited, Will," went on the same even, dull voice,
which Clark could scarcely recognize; "but I have decided to go on
through with you."

CHAPTER VI

WHICH WAY?

"Which way, Will?" asked Meriwether Lewis. "Which is the river? If we
miss many guesses, the British will beat us through. Which is our
river here?"

They stood at the junction of the Yellowstone with the Missouri, and
faced one of the first of their great problems. It was spring once
more. The geese were flying northward again; the grass was green.
Three weeks ago the ice had run clear, and they had left their winter
quarters among the Mandans.

Five months they had spent at the Mandan village; for five months they
had labored to reach that place; for five months, or more, they had
lain at St. Louis. Time was passing. As Meriwether Lewis said, few
wrong guesses could be afforded.

Early in April the great barge, manned by ten men, had set out down
stream, carrying with it the proof of the success of the expedition.
It bore many new things, precious things, things unknown to
civilization. Among these were sixty specimens of plants, as many of
minerals and earth, weapons of the Indians, examples of their
clothing, specimens of the corn and other vegetables which they
raised, horns of the bighorn and the antelope--both animals then new
to science--antlers of the deer and elk, stuffed specimens, dried
skins, herbs, fruits, flowers; and with all these the broken story of
a new geography--the greatest story ever sent out for publication by
any man or men; and all done in Homeric simplicity.

As the great barge had started down the river, the two pirogues which
had come so far, joined by the cottonwood dugouts laboriously
fabricated during the winter months, had started up the river, manned
by thirty-one men.

With the pick of the original party, there had come but