The Young Alaskans on the Missouri by Emerson Hough (the kiss of deception read online .TXT) 📕
The boys all agreed to this and gave their promise to do their best, if only they could be allowed to make this wonderful trip over the first and greatest exploring trail of the West.
"It can perhaps be arranged," said Uncle Dick.
"You mean, it has been arranged!" said Rob. "You've spoken to our school principal!"
"Well, yes, then! And you can cut off a little from the spring term, too. But it's all on condition that you come back also with a knowledge of that much history, additional to your regular studies."
"Oh, agreed to that!" said Rob; while John and Jesse began to drop their books and eagerly come closer to their older gu
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“Of course, Rob, you know the incident of the Three Flags?”
Rob nodded.
“That was a great day, when the American army of the West, twenty-nine men in buckskin, under this young captain of thirty years, marched into St. Louis to take possession of the Great West for America. And St. Louis in twenty-four hours was under the flags of three great countries, Spain, France, and the United States.
“You see—and I want you to study these things hard some day—Napoleon, the Emperor of France, was at war. This Western region belonged to Spain, or she said it did, but she ceded it to Napoleon; and then when he didn’t think he could hold it against Great Britain, he sold it to us.
“Now this had all been country largely settled by French people who had come down long ago from the Great Lakes. They didn’t think Spain had exercised real sovereignty. Now we had bought up both claims, the Spanish and the French; so we owned St. Louis all right, going or coming.
“So, first the Spanish flag over the old fort was struck. Next came the French. And the French loved the place so much, they begged they might have their flag fly over it for at least one night. Captain Lewis said they might, for he was a courteous gentleman, of course. But orders were orders. So in the morning the flag of France came down and the Flag of the United States of America was raised, where it has been ever since, and I think will always remain. Those events happened on March 9 and 10, 1804.
“So there they were, with the Flag up over a country that nobody knew anything at all about. Then they started out, on May 14 of that year, 1804. And since that time that unknown America has grown to be one of the richest, if not the very richest, land in the world. And since that time, so much has the world changed, I have seen three flags flying at the same time over a city in France—those of France, of Great Britain, and of America, and all at peace with one another, though all at war together as allies in a cause they felt was just. May they float together now! Aye, and may Spain have no fear of any of the three.”
“Are you about done with the painting, Rob?” concluded Uncle Dick.
“Yes, sir, finished.”
“Look it!” said John.
Jesse was coming down from the tent, unrolling something wrapped around a stick. “Well now, well now,” he drawled, “where shall I put this?”
“Company, ’tenshun!” barked Uncle Dick. “Colors pass!” And all snapped again into the salute while Jesse fastened the Flag into the bow of the Adventurer, of America.
“Now we’re about all ready,” said Jesse, gravely. And he also stood at the salute which good Scouts give the Flag, as a little band of strong men in buckskin had done, not far away, more than a hundred years ago.
CHAPTER IV THE EARLY ADVENTURERS“
Well, are you all set, fellows?” demanded Uncle Dick, at last, turning to his young companions and taking a look over the dismantled camp.
“Just about, sir,” answered Rob, who always was accepted as the next officer to Uncle Dick in command.
“Load her down by the head all you can,” said the latter, as the boys began storing the remaining duffle aboard.
“Why?” asked Jesse, who always wanted to know reasons.
“I’ll tell you. This water is so roily you can’t see into it very deep. It has a lot of snags and sweepers and buried stuff. Now, if she rides with bows high, she slips farther up, say, on a sunken log. If her bow is down a little, she either doesn’t slide on, or else she slips on over.”
“Oh! I hadn’t thought of that.”
Uncle Dick grinned. “Well, maybe I wouldn’t, either, if I hadn’t been reading my Lewis and Clark Journal all over again. They speak of that very thing. Oh, this is a bad old river, all right. Those men had a hard time.”
“But, sir,” answered Rob, “if we load too far down by the bow, our stern motors won’t take hold so well. We’ve got to bury them.”
“That’s true, their weight throws the bow very high. I doubt if we can do much better than have an even keel, but if she’ll kick all right, keep her down all you can in front, for if we ever do ride a log, we’ll strip off the propellers, and maybe the end of the boat, too. Better be safe than sorry, always.”
“They didn’t have as good a boat as ours, did they?” John spoke with a good deal of pride as he cast an eye over the long, racy hull of the Adventurer, whose model was one evolved for easy travel upstream under oars.
“Well, no, but still they got along, in those days, after their own fashion. You see, they started out with three boats. First was a big keel boat, fifty-five feet long, with twenty-two oars and a big square sail. She drew three feet of water, loaded, and had a ten-foot deck forward, with lockers midship, which they could stack up for a breastworks against Indian attacks, if they had to. Oh, she was quite a ship, all right.
“Then they had a large red perogue—must have been something like ours, a rangy river skiff, built of boards; certainly not like the little cypress dugouts they call ‘peewoogs’ in Louisiana.
“Now they had a third boat, the ‘white peroque,’ they spell it. It was smaller, carrying six oars. The red skiff carried the eight French voyageurs——”
“We ought to have all their names, those fellows,” said Frank.
“Well, write them down—I’ve got the Journal handy. Here Captain Clark gives them, as they were set into squads, May 26th, far up the river. You see, they were a military party—there were twenty-nine on the official rolls as volunteers, not mentioning Captains Lewis and Clark, or York, Captain Clark’s negro body servant, who all traveled on the big boat:
“‘Orderly Book: Lewis.
Detachment Orders
May 26th, 1804.
The Commanding Officers Direct, that the three Squads under the command of Sergts. Floyd, Ordway and Pryor, heretofore forming two messes each, shall untill further orders constitute three messes only, the same being altered and organized as follows (viz:)
The Commanding Officers further direct that the messes of Sergts. Floyd, Ordway, and Pryor shall untill further orders form the crew of the Batteaux; the Mess of the Patroon La Jeunesse will form the permanent crew of the red Peroque; Corpl. Warvington’s men forming that of the white Peroque.’
“There it all is, just as Captain Lewis wrote it, capitals and all. How many would it be, Rob—not forgetting the two captains and the negro York, Clark’s body servant, who is not mentioned in the list?”
“I make it forty-one names here in the messes,” answered Rob, after counting, “or forty-four with the others added. That does not include Chaboneau or the Indian girl, Sacágawea, whom they took on at Mandan.”
“No, that’s another list. It usually is said there were forty-five in the party at St. Louis. You see the name ‘Francis Rivet and (French).’ That would make forty-five if French were a man French and not a Frenchman. But they always spoke of the voyagers as ‘the French.’ Anyhow, there’s the list of May 26, 1804.”
“Maybe they lost a man overboard somewhere,” suggested John.
“Not yet. They had a deserter or two, but that was farther up the river, and they caught one of these and gave him a good military trimming and expulsion, as we’ll see later. But this I suppose we may call the actual party that found our Great West for us. They are the Company of Volunteers for Northwestern Discovery.”
The three boys looked half in awe as they read over the names of these forgotten men.
“Yes. So there they were,” resumed Uncle Dick, gravely. “And here in the Journal the very first sentence says the party was ‘composed of robust, healthy, hardy young men.’ Well, that’s the sort I’ve got along with me, what?”
“But Uncle Dick—Uncle Dick—” broke in Jesse, excitedly, “your book is all wrong! Just look at the way the spelling is! It’s awful. It wasn’t that way in the copies we had.”
“That’s because this is a real and exact copy of what they really did write down,” said Uncle Dick. “Yours must have been one of the rewritten and much-edited volumes. To my mind, that’s a crime. Here’s the real thing.
“Listen!” he added, suddenly, holding the volume close to him. “Would you like to know something about those two young chaps, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, and what became of their Journals after they got home? You’d hardly believe it.”
“Tell us,” said Rob.
Uncle Dick opened his book on his knee, as they all sat on the rail of the Adventurer.
“They were soldiers, both of them, fighting men. Lewis had some education, and his mind was very keen. He was the private secretary of President Thomas Jefferson, but Jefferson says he was not ‘regularly educated.’ He studied some months in astronomy and other scientific lines, under Mr. Andrew Ellicott, of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with the special purpose of fitting himself to lead this expedition. Mr. Ellicott had experience in astronomical observation, and practice of it in the woods, the record says.
“Lewis was better educated than Clark, who was four years the older—thirty-three—while Lewis was twenty-nine. He spells better than Clark, who is about as funny as Josh Billings, though he certainly spelled his best. Of one thing you can be sure, whenever you see anything of the Journal spelled correctly, it is false and spurious—that’s not the original, for spelling was the one thing those two fellows couldn’t do.
“They used to make field notes, rough, just as you boys do. Clark had an elk-skin cover to his book—and that little book disappeared for over one hundred years. It was found in the possession of some distant relatives, descendants, by name of Voorhis, only just about ten years ago.
“At night, by the camp fire, the two officers would write out their field notes, for they had to report very fully to President Jefferson. Sometimes one wrote, sometimes the other, and often one would copy the other’s notes. Only the originals could make all that plain. And, alas! not all
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