The Captain's Dog by Roland Smith Read Free Book Online

him.
    "I don't think so, Captain," Floyd said weakly. "I am going away. I want you to write a letter."
    Before Captain Clark could get his writing things, Sergeant Floyd closed his eyes for the last time.

    Above the shore was a high bluff. The men carried Floyd's body to the top, dug a deep hole, and lowered him into it. Captain Lewis read from his Bible and the men bowed their heads and prayed. When they finished filling the hole, Colter brought a piece of wood over to the mound to mark it.
    "What should I write?" he asked the Captain.
    "Something simple," Captain Lewis said sadly. "'Charles Floyd died here, 20 August 1804."'
    Not far from the bluff was a small river, which the captains named Floyd's River in honor of the sergeant. A vote was held and the men elected Private Patrick Gass to take Floyd's place as sergeant.
    The men were all affected by Floyd's death, but
none more than Captain Lewis, who blamed himself for the sergeant's passing.
    "There must have been something I could have done to save him," he said to Captain Clark.
    "You did all that you could, Meriwether."
    The Captain did not believe it was enough.

August 23, 1804
After our recent loss, the men have been much out of spirits. But today we have something to celebrate—we shot our first buffalo....
Colter looks up from the red book. "Remember when I killed that buff? That cheered us some."
    "I killed the first buff," Drouillard says.
    "In your dreams, partner. I remember that day clearly..."
    It was neither of them.
    JOE FIELDS ran into camp, shouting, "I killed me a buffalo! It's a huge beast!"
    There was no one more cheered by this news than me. The captains sent a dozen men out onto the prairie to help Joe bring the meat back to camp, and every one of them was needed.
    The buffalo was covered in woolly brown fur. It had a hump on its back, stubby horns, bulging brown eyes, and a beard, and it tasted better than anything I had ever had in my mouth. When we had all feasted to our satisfaction, the captains had the men cut the leftover meat into thin strips, salt them, then lay them in the sun to dry. They called this jerking. The dried meat was light to carry and didn't spoil.
    Despite having their bellies filled with buffalo, some of the men were still dispirited by the loss of Sergeant Floyd. Those closest to the sergeant, including the captains, seemed to be spending more time on their own than they had prior to his passing. In the evenings when the work was done, they would wander off and find a spot away from the others and sit for long periods of time preoccupied with their thoughts.

August 27, 1804
Private Shannon did not come back to camp last night, and we are greatly worried about him. We don't know if he's lost, had trouble with Indians, or has met with some accident. Reed's desertion, Floyd's death, and now the disappearance of the youngest member of the party...
    SHANNON WAS NOT a good hunter, and the Captain was afraid that he might starve to death if they didn't find him quickly. John Colter was sent out to look for him, but he came back without picking up his trail. Drouillard tried next, but he didn't have any luck, either.
    I started sniffing around and came to the conclusion that they were searching in the wrong direction. Shannon wasn't behind us. He was in front of us. He must have missed our camp and thought that we were ahead of him.
    When I made the discovery the captains were both aboard the keelboat. I tried to get one of the men walking onshore to follow me, but they were tired and hungry and in no mood to pay attention.
    "Quit pestering me!"
    "Shut up, Sea!"
    "Not now, you big skunk."
    Humans can be so dense at times! Even if I had gotten them to follow me, they probably would not have understood what I was trying to show them. I had found Shannon's moccasin prints and a dead fire where he had roasted a small rabbit. The captains, Drouillard, and Colter were probably the only men who would have recognized that the prints