Roll out, men, roll out!”
The sleeping men stirred under their robes and blankets and turned out, quickly awake, after the fashion of the wilderness. The sentinel came in, his moccasins wet, his tunic girded tight against the cool of the morning, which even at that season was chill upon the high plains. Soon the fires were alight and the odors of roasting meat arose. The hour was scarce yet dawn.
“Ordway! Gass! Pryor!” Lewis called in the sergeants in charge of the three messes. “The boy Shannon has not returned. Which of your men, Ordway, will best serve to find Shannon and meet us up the river?”
“Myself, sir,” said Ordway, “if you please.”
“No, ’tis meself, sor,” interrupted Patrick Gass.
Pryor, with hand outstretched, also claimed the honor of the difficult undertaking.
“You three are needed in the boats,” said the leader. “No, I think it will be better to send Drouillard and the two Fields boys. But tell me, Sergeant Ordway——”
“Yes, sir!”
“Has any boat passed up the river within the last day—for instance, while we were away at the hunt?”