Clark

“ From all directions the Indians flocked; Clark became apprehensive of such numbers,—Chippewas, Ottawas, Pottawattamies, Sacs, Foxes, Maumees.
"The Big Knives are right," said the chiefs. "The Great King of the French has come to life."
Without the firing of a gun or the loss of a life, the great tactician subjugated red men and white. Clark had no presents to give,—he awed the Indians. He devoted great care to the drilling of his troops, and the nations sat by to gaze at the spectacle. The Frenchmen drilled proudly with the rest. ”

“ Adelle knew that he was speaking of the stone mason; she knew that Clark was daring the impossible to get at her child, to save her "Boy." She felt in every fiber of her body the strain of that feat—the clinging, creeping progress up the perpendicular wall over the cañon. Those around groaned as they watched, expecting each moment to see the man's body fall backwards sickeningly into space. ”

“ Clark, with his impetuous energy, is typical of a country in which few achievements are impossible. He provided his own motive power and used his hypnotic influence only in one direction—that of progress. Ever faithful to his destiny, he was too busy to have time to suffer, too occupied to waste himself in regrets. Like the rapids themselves, his work moves on, and in its deep rumble may be distinguished the confused note of humanity, striving and ever striving. ”

“ The two nodded and moved off, talking earnestly, while Clark experienced a strange breathlessness. His soul was in tumult, and he reacted from the strain of the past few days. He perceived that with men like himself and his visitors lay the great economic forces of the world. And yet he was expected to make way.
Passing slowly through the big gates, towards which he had walked automatically, he moved on beyond the pulp mills towards the rapids, as though drawn by their insistent call. ”

“ The spirit of the poet soars to God!
Mr. Clark possessed poetic talents of no ordinary merit. He belonged to the school of Goldsmith and Pope, rather than to that of Byron or Coleridge. He was more remarkable for sweetness than passion, for melody than force, for fancy than imagination. The rank to which he belonged was not the highest, but in that rank he occupied one of the foremost stations. He was distinguished for his grace and euphony. Few men have written so elegantly as Mr. Clark; no man has excelled him in the melody of numbers. ”

“ Forward in the bows, the Scotch engineer and the Indian pilot sat conversing in deliberate monosyllables, and in the east a horned moon floated just clear of the ragged tops of encircling pine trees. Clark ate slowly and felt the burden slipping from his shoulders. It was a strange sensation. Across the narrow table towered the bishop, the genius of the place. He was still reminiscent of American experiences and talked as talks a man who is comfortably sure of himself and his companion.
"I don't believe I have any very close personal friends," said Clark presently. ”

“ Dressed in hunting shirt and moccasins, his rifle on his shoulder, his tomahawk in his belt, now leading his eager followers on the trail of the red marauders, now galloping at the head of his horsemen to the relief of some beleaguered station, Clark guarded Kentucky.
No life was safe beyond the walls. Armed sentinels were ever on the watchtowers, armed guards were at the gates. And outside, Indians lay concealed, watching as only Indians can watch, nights and days, to cut off the incautious settler who might step beyond the barricades. ”

“ Like a true man, Clark, inspired by a true woman—the phantom-wife, and artiste—ran, leapt, flew to arms and deathless glory. Ah, God! to arms, and fadeless glory! He had no time to grieve, or grumble; or to criticise this general, or that battle. He looked over the heads of cowards and traitors in his own camp, at the noble men in arms, and who bravely fought, and nobly died, for the Country. He saw, and gloriously emulated such men as Lyon, Saxton, Hunter, Fremont—and Baker! Baker!—O Oregon! my tears fall with thine, for him! He was mine, yours—ours! Ours, in his life ”

“ Soon after, Clark, taking his gun, went out of the house for the purpose of “scouting the country around” and seeing whether he might get sight of the Indians. Going to the top of a peak near by, where he could overlook the surrounding country without unduly exposing himself, he awaited events, not realizing what an approaching one should mean to himself, and to an old enemy on whom he had vowed vengeance for the death of his old-time partner, and that this event would mark an era in a life ever filled with its dangers, not one of which had ever been shirked, but always bravely met. ”

“ At this moment there are not more than eighty soldiers left in garrison, nor more than three pieces of cannon and some swivels mounted."
With inspiration born of genius and desperate courage Clark made his resolve. "If I don't take Hamilton he'll take me; and, by Heaven! I'll take Hamilton!"
But it was midwinter on the bleak prairies of Illinois, where to this day the unwary traveller may be frozen stark in the icy chill. Clark's men were almost entirely without clothing, ammunition, provisions. Can genius surmount destitution? Clark turned to Vigo. ”

“ In those boats Clark bore provisions, ammunition, artillery, quartermaster's stores, collected as if from the very earth by his undying energy,—everything but men, men! Major William Croghan stood with him on the wharf at Pittsburg, burning, longing to go, but honour forbade,—he was out on parole from Charleston.
Peeping, spying, gliding, Indians down the Ohio would have attacked but for fear of Clark's cannon. The "rear guard of the Continental army" little knew the young Virginian, the terror of his name. For him, Canada staid at home to guard Detroit when she might have wrested Yorktown. ”

“ Here and there, in untidy brown patches, were Indian settlements, and far away to the westward the tawny Father of Waters gleamed through the cottonwoods.
Through the waning day the men lay resting under the trees, talking in undertones. Some cleaned their rifles, and others lost themselves in conjectures of the attack. But Clark himself, tireless, stood with folded arms gazing at the scene below, and the sunlight on his face illumined him (to the lad standing at his side) as the servant of destiny. ”

“ The savages in Cahokia were as the leaves of the forest. Curiosity, that mainspring of the Indian character, had brought the chiefs, big and little, to see with their own eyes the great Captain of the Long Knives. In vain had the faithful Bowman put them off. They would wait. Clark must come. And Clark was coming, for he was not the man to quail at such a crisis. For the crux of the whole matter was here. And if he failed to impress them with his power, with the might of the Congress for which he fought, no man of his would ever see Kentucky again. ”

“ The penetrating gaze followed the pigmy vessel as it dipped to the larger stretch of the bay, dwindling with the glint of two blades that flashed with clock-like regularity in the afternoon sun. Soon it reduced to a speck and was out of sight. Clark turned to his office, still contemplating the dignity of his visitor, the stark simplicity of this archaean aristocrat. How soon, after all, he pondered, might not he himself and his works look aboriginal beside the achievements which science had yet to unfold to the world? ”

“ Even Clark's old friend, The Tobacco's Son, had gone back to his British father, and as always with Indians, dug up the red tomahawk.
A committee of American citizens at Vincennes sent a flying express to Clark.
"This place that once trembled at your victorious arms, and these savages overawed by your superior power, is now entirely anarchical and we shudder at the daily expectation of horrid murder. We beg you will write us by the earliest opportunity. Knowing you to be a friend of the distressed we look to you for assistance." ”

“ General Clark then arose and spoke to the kind-hearted Flatheads of a great people toward the rising sun. "They worship the Great Spirit," he said. "He has made them strong and brave and rich."
"Does he give them wigwams and much buffalo?" ”

“ In unkempt beard, hair shaggy as a horse's mane, and clothing all of leather, the stranger climbed the rocky path, using the stock of his gun for a staff.
It did not take long to find the Indian office. With a 345 dozen lounging braves outside and a council within, sat William Clark, the Red Head Chief. ”

“ We can see how far from the anarchist his philosophy of life led him. The accidents of life—yes, but mysterious, not merely ironic and meaningless, accidents! Adelle Clark, the unpromising little girl, the loud, silly young married woman, was the instrument chosen by Fate—only the judge said God-sharpened by pain and sorrow to become the intelligent destiny of Clark's Field. Could the law with all its hedging and guarding beat that? Could the stone mason or the judge himself or any human mind select a better executor for Clark's Field than the unlikely instrument which Fate had chosen? ”

“ An instinct, a relic, an inheritance of long ago was upon them, when their ancestors roved the earth untrammelled by cities and civilisation, when the rock was man's pillow and the cave his home, when the arrow in his strong hand brought the fruits of the chase, when garments of skin clad his limbs, and God spoke to the white savage under the old Phœnician stars.
In their dreams they felt the rain and wind beat on their leather tent. Sacajawea's baby cried, Spring nodded with the rosy clarkia, screamed with Clark's crow, and tapped with Lewis's woodpecker. ”

“ And yet, as if to show us that a young man so amiable, kind-hearted, and philanthropic as Clark, was far from perfection, or even consistency of character, he engaged in the business of privateering; a business now regarded by civilized nations as barbarous and immoral. ”

“ Back and forth in the gorgeous October weather rode Clark and Julia, watching the workmen at Fotheringay.
Now and then the carriage stopped at an orchard. Passers were always at liberty to help themselves to the fruit. Peaches so abundant that they fed the hogs with them, apples rosy and mellow, grapes for the vintage, were in the first flush of abundance. What a contrast to that autumn in the Bitter Root Mountains!
Then late in November to Fincastle came Governor Lewis and his brother Reuben, on their way to the west. He, too, had been to Washington on business concerning St. Louis. ”

“ It was just her head that Livingstone saw first, as she poked it in and peeped around. Then, as Mr. Clark sat with his back to the door and she saw that no one else was present, the visitor inserted her whole body and, closing the door softly, with her eyes dancing and her little mouth puckered up in a mischievous way, she came on tiptoe across the floor, stealing towards Clark until she was within a few feet of him, when with a sudden little rush she threw her arms about his head and clapped her hands quickly over his eyes:
"Guess who it is?" ”

“ More and more frequently the old cavalier retired to his rustic arbour in the garden.
"I must hunt up father, he will take cold," William would say; and there on a moonlight night, on his knees in prayer, the old man would be found, among the cedars and honeysuckles of Mulberry Hill.
"Why do you dislike old John Clark," some one asked of a neighbour when the venerable man lay on his death-bed.
"What? I dislike old John Clark? I revere and venerate him. His piety and virtues may have been a reproach, but I reverence and honour old John Clark." ”

“ But I was saying that when Clark left me, I was drawing on my gloves to go to see my fiancée, the Countess Clodagh, when I heard the two voices most clearly.
Sometimes the urgency of one or other impulse is so overpowering, that there is no resisting it: and it was so then with the one that bid me go.
I had to traverse the distance between Harley Street and Hanover Square, and all the time it was as though something shouted at my physical ear: 'Since you go, breathe no word of the Boreal, and Clark's visit' ”

“ Red Bird was a handsome Indian, dressed Yankton fashion in white unsoiled deerskin and scarlet, and glove-fitting moccasins,—the dandy of his tribe.
The debate grew animated. "Our tract is so small," cried the Menomonees, "that we cannot turn around without touching our neighbours." Then every Indian began to describe his boundaries, crossing and recrossing each other.
"These are the causes of all your troubles," said Clark. "It is better for each of you to give up some disputed claim than to be fighting for ever about it." ”

“ With pale berries they stained their porcupine quills, with ochre painted the buffalo lodges, with vermilion rouged their faces, but none like these growing on the heads of men!
Seating themselves with all due dignity, Lewis and Clark scarce lifted their eyes from the ground as the Grand Chief, Weucha, extended his decorated pipe in silence. A full hour elapsed before Weucha, slipping his robe to give full play to his arm, arose before them.
"I see before me my Great Father's two sons. We very poor. We no powder, ball, knives. Our women and children at the village no clothes. ”

“ Clark knew, when he set out on his march to Vincennes, that he was not indulging a visionary impulse. The enterprise was one that called for all that manhood could endure, but not more. With the genius of a born leader he measured his task by his means. ”