ate dream of
human destiny--triumph and flourish while governments shall remain
known among men.

"I offer that faith to the eyes of the world today and of all the days
to come, believing in every humility that God guided the hands of
those who signed this title deed of a great empire, and that God long
ago implanted in my unworthy bosom the strong belief that one day this
might be which now has come to pass. It is no time for boasting, no
time for any man to claim glory or credit for himself. We are in the
face of events so vast that their margins leave our vision. We cannot
see to the end of all this, cannot read all the purpose of it, because
we are but men.

"Gentlemen, you Americans, men of heart, of courage! You also, ladies,
who care most for gentlemen of heart and courage, whose pulses beat
even with our own to the stimulus of our deeds! I say to you all that
I would gladly lay aside my office and its honors--I would lay aside
all my other ambitions, all my desires to be remembered as a man who
at least endeavored to think and to act--if thereby I might lead this
expedition of our volunteers for the discovery of the West. That may
not be. These slackened sinews, these shrinking limbs, these fading
eyes, do not suffice for such a task. It is in my heart, yes; but the
heart for this magnificent adventure needs stronger pulses than my
own.

"My heart--did I say that I had need of another, a better? Did I say
that I had need of eyes and brains, of thews and sinews, of calm
nerves and steady blood? Did I say I had need of courage and
resolution--all these things combined? I have them! That Providence
who has given us all needful instruments and agents to this point in
our career as a republic has given us yet another, and the last one
needful. Tomorrow my friend, my special messenger, Captain Meriwether
Lewis, starts with his expedition. He will explore the country between
the Missouri and the Pacific--the country of my dream and his. It is
no longer the country of any other power--it is our own!

"Gentlemen, I give you a toast--Captain Meriwether Lewis!"

CHAPTER VI

THE GREAT CONSPIRACY

The simplicity dinner was at an end. Released by the President's
withdrawal, the crowd--it could be called little else--broke from the
table. The anteroom filled with struggling guests, excited,
gesticulating, exclaiming.

Meriwether Lewis, anxious only to escape from his social duties that
he might rejoin his c