“So there you are, young men,” concluded Uncle Dick, rising and reaching for his hat as the train began to near the environs of the busy city. “If you must think of something striking, something worth remembering, out of all the pleasant memories you hold from our little journey this year—you Young Alaskans, now beginning to explore the history of your own wonderful country—set down this picture of Captain Meriwether Lewis, thirty-one years old, with more responsibilities, more of consequences, more future, on his shoulders right then than any other officer of our army ever had, sitting there by his little fire writing in his notebook the same as you, Rob, and you, Jesse, and you, John, have written in yours—and after that, remember what he wrote. Not so very conceited, was he?
“There were two men who were not thinking of politics nor of personal profit in any way. They did not hunt for advancement, they let that hunt them. They were not working for money; they never had much money, either one of them. They were not working for glory; they never had much glory, either of them; they always lacked the recognition they ought to have had, and they are almost forgotten to-day, as they ought not to be. They did their work because it was there to do, out of a sense of duty; they were content with that.
“So now out of all our travels up to this date, I don’t know that there is any experience we’ve had that will bring us a much bigger lesson than this one. Write it in your notebooks—what Meriwether Lewis wrote in his notebook, that day in the mountains. When you are thirty-one, check back in your notebooks and see if you can write what he could.
“Yes, I hope that you may resolve in future to ‘redouble your exertions.’ I hope you may give a ‘portion of the talents which nature and fortune have bestowed on you,’ for the sake of mankind—for the sake of your country, young gentlemen, and not wholly for the sake of yourselves.”
The train rolled into the great railway station. Wondering onlookers stopped for a moment and turned as they saw three lean, sunbrowned boys stand at attention and give the Scout salute to the older man who turned to them and, smiling, snapped his hand into the regulation salute of the Army.
And so, as Jesse smilingly said, the Company of Volunteers for Northwestern Discovery disbanded for that year.
THE END
FOOTNOTES
[1] See Vol. I, The Young Alaskans; Vol. II, The Young Alaskans on the Trail; Vol. III, The Young Alaskans in the Rockies; Vol. IV, The Young Alaskans in the Far North.