robe."
The skins and robe were spread on the floor and the
woman went away to her kitchen. The house was a
double log cabin with a covered way between. Such
houses abound still in the Cumberland Mountains.
"I am afraid of that man," said the woman in the kitchen, putting her children in their beds. "Something is wrong. I cannot sleep."
The servants slept in the barn. Neely had not come. Night came down with its mysterious veil upon the frontier cabin.
But still that heavy pace was heard in the other cabin. Now and then a voice spoke rapidly and incoherently.
"He must be a lawyer," said the woman in the kitchen. Suddenly she heard the report of a pistol, and something dropped heavily to the floor. There was a voice,—"O Lord!"
Excited, peering into the night, the trembling woman listened. Another pistol, and then a voice at her door,—"Oh, madame, give me some water and heal my wounds!"
Peering into the moonlight between the open unplastered logs, she saw her guest stagger and fall. Presently he crawled back into the room. Then again he came to the kitchen door, but did not speak. An empty pail stood there with a gourd,—he was searching for water. Cowering, terrified, there in the kitchen with her children the woman waited for the light.
At the first break of day she sent two of the children to the barn to arouse the servants. And there, on his bearskins on the cabin floor, they found the shattered frame of Meriwether Lewis, a bullet in his side, a shot under his chin, and a ghastly wound in his forehead.
"Take my rifle and kill me!" he begged. "I will give you all the money in my trunk. I am no coward, but I am so strong,—so hard to die! Do not be afraid of me, Pernia, I will not hurt you."
And as the sun rose over the Tennessee trees, Meriwether Lewis was dead, on the 11th of October, 1809.
