After a brief stop at Kaskaskia, that century-old trading post of the French, we undertook the last run to St. Louis with much spirit. The greater part of the crew were eager to reach St. Louis in time for the celebration of Independence Day. In this we were disappointed, being so set back by headwinds that we did not tie up to the home wharf until the evening of the sixth of July.
My first inquiries relieved me of my fear that Lieutenant Pike had already started. He was waiting with his party, fourteen or fifteen miles upstream, at the Cantonment Belle Fontaine, established the previous year by General Wilkinson. I had already learned at Kaskaskia that the General had passed us in his barge far down the river, and had arrived in St. Louis several days before us. To this was now added the news that he had gone on up to Belle Fontaine.
Such an opportunity to meet the General and my friend together was not to be lost. I made my plans over-night in St. Louis, stored my chest, provided myself with a new hunter's suit, and obtained letters of recommendation to the General from two gentlemen of influence.
Dawn found me at the convenient river front which gives St. Louis such an advantage over the other up-river settlements of twice its size and age. The rock bank not only prevents the incutting of the current, but, owing to its lowness, gives easy access to and from the water, unlike the high bluffs upon which most of the settlements have been located.
Looking about for an up-river party, I was so fortunate as to fall in with Mr. Daniel Boone, who with his son-in-law, Flanders Calloway, had come down from La Charette with a bateau-load of furs. Seeing me in hunting dress, the old gentleman showed the keenest interest in my intentions, and upon learning that my immediate purpose was to reach Belle Fontaine, invited me aboard their bateau.
On the way upstream he made me sit beside him in the stern-sheets, and his look betrayed such an eagerness over my plans that I could not resist confiding them to him. It was sad to see the youthful fire flash and sparkle in his bright old eyes, only to dull and fade to the grayness of forced resignation.
"My days are past, John," he said, in his quiet, almost gentle voice. "You have heard me tell of the trip I took with your father through the Choctaw nation; but I'm now past my threescore years and ten, lad. Take off the ten, and I'd be with you on this traceless quest to the Spanish country. It's hard to be tied down to a scant fifty miles or so of free range. But my old bones stiffen and call for rest after their wanderings. I reckon, though, I've done a man's share in my time. Not that I make any boast of it; only I feel that I was an instrument in God's providence to open the wilderness to our people. I feel it none the less that there were all those others before me. Captain Morgan founded New Madrid in sixty-six—"
"But that was under Spanish rule," I exclaimed. "Yours was the first of the advanced American settlements in Kentucky. If only I may have a share in a like tracing of our great Western plains!"
He gave me a shrewd glance. "You fear they won't let you go with the expedition. Why not follow their trace, and join their party in the Pawnee country? This young lieutenant is your friend, you say. He will be sure to take you into camp."
Simple as was this stratagem, it had not occurred to me in all my scheming. Yet it was so practicable that I at once assured Mr. Boone I would, if need were, carry out the suggestion. A few minutes later he landed me at Belle Fontaine, and we parted with a warm handshake. Though deprived by litigation of the bulk of his Spanish grant on the Femme Osage, as he had been in the early nineties of his Kentucky lands, Mr. Boone remains one of the most even-tempered and kindliest men I know.