“Faith, he gave his life for his country,” asserted Patrick.
So the sick man had died. This much Peter easily guessed. It turned dinner into a very quiet affair. Nothing more was said of leaving Peter ashore, nor of sending him back; but as soon as the dinner was finished the boats all pushed out and headed up river, along a bank surmounted by rolling bluffs.
After about a mile by sail and oars, everybody landed; and the body of Sergeant Charles Floyd, United States Army, the first of the expedition to fall, was buried on the top of a bluff. Captain Clark read some words out of a book, over the grave; and upon the grave was set a cedar post with the name, Sergt. C. Floyd, and the date, Aug. 20, 1804, carved into it. Then three volleys from the rifles were fired.
The boats proceeded on for a camping-place, which was found about a mile up, on the right-hand or north side, near the mouth of a little river. The bluff of the grave was referred to as Floyd’s Bluff, and the little river was called Floyd’s River.
All the men, including Peter, felt sorry for Sergeant Nathaniel Pryor. Floyd had been his cousin. They felt sorry for those other relatives and friends, back at the Floyd home in Kentucky.
Fifty years later, or in 1857, the grave of the sergeant was moved a few hundred feet, by the Sioux City, Iowa, people, so that it should not crumble into the Missouri River; and in 1895 a monument was placed over it. To-day Floyd’s Bluff is part of a Sioux City park.
The camp this evening was only thirteen miles above the Omaha village and the place where Chief Little Thief had come in to council, so that Peter very easily might have been sent back. But the death of Sergeant Charles Floyd seemed to be occupying the thoughts of the two captains; it made the whole camp sober. To-night there was no dancing or music, and Peter slept aboard the barge with nobody paying especial attention to him. Of this he was glad, because he feared that, once ashore, he would be left behind—the ’Nited States would try to sail on without him.