“Then it is possible that they followed you all the way up here, and, having obtained the assistance of some equally desperate border characters, laid a cunning plot whereby they meant to win by foul means, where fair could not succeed! What puzzles me most of all is how they could know that Mayhew carried the paper. I should dislike very much to believe we had a traitor in our little camp!”
The captain looked around at the assembled men with a serious expression on his face, which caused some uneasiness among the soldiers, frontiersmen and voyageurs who made up the expedition. They had always shown themselves loyal to their commanders and, when the finger of suspicion pointed their way, all felt the disgrace keenly.
Mayhew it was who came to their relief.
“I could never believe, sir, that any one here could be so treacherous,” he hastened to say, as though anxious to take the entire burden of responsibility on his own broad shoulders, in which he proved himself to be at least a man. “I have been seriously thinking it over as I rode all day long, and believe I can see how it may have been known that I carried the boys’ packet.”
“Then explain it, Mayhew; for I must confess that the whole thing is a great puzzle to me,” Captain Lewis told him.
“When they saw us depart they knew, of course, that you would be sending a report of the progress of the expedition to the Government at Washington, sir. They must have also surmised that the boys would have influenced Jasper Williams to sign the paper that would free their homes, and that one of us must be carrying it to St. Louis. Do you not think that is reasonable, Captain?”
“Yes, but tell me how they could have picked you out as the one bearing it?” asked the other, impatiently.
“The only explanation I can give is that they must have been in hiding near us at the time we camped,” continued Mayhew. “I remember taking the packet out, so as to fasten it in my pocket anew, since it was not as secure as I desired. I believe some one was watching from the bushes near by, and saw me do it. Then, while we struggled there on the ground, he managed to tear open my tunic, and, while half-choking me, snatched the paper away.”
“And giving a prearranged signal at the same time to tell of his success,” remarked the captain, this time nodding his head in the affirmative, as though he had come around to the same way of thinking as Mayhew.
“The fighting ceased as if by magic,” declared the messenger. “One minute all of us were struggling as for our lives; then that cry rang out, and immediately we found ourselves deserted. We heard retreating footsteps, a harsh laugh, and shortly afterwards the distant hoofstrokes of horses being ridden rapidly away.”