“What happened next?” Paul said.

“Two weeks after he arrived at the fort,” Angela continued, “Lewis set off again. He was carrying two trunks that held his papers from the Pacific expedition, a portfolio, memo book, and documents of a private and public nature. The expedition journals are contained in sixteen notebooks bound in red morocco leather.”

“It must have been tough carrying all that stuff overland on his own,” Paul said.

“Almost impossible. Which is why he accepted an offer of an extra horse from James Neelly, a former Indian agent for the Chickasaw nation. On September twenty-ninth, they left the fort: Lewis, his servant, Pernia, and a slave, and Neelly.”

“Hardly the sort of entourage you’d expect of a territorial governor,” Gamay noted.

“I can’t figure it either,” Angela said. “Especially in light of the legend of Lewis’s long-lost gold mine.”

“The plot thickens,” Paul said. “Tell us about this mine.”

“It was said that Lewis discovered a gold mine on his Pacific expedition. He told a few friends, and supposedly left a description of the mine so that if he died it might be of some use to the country. I’m sure the gold mine story was generally known. And it was common knowledge along the Trace that the governor would be passing through.”

“Lewis would have been in special danger,” Gamay said.

“Every bandit along the Trace would have been thinking about the map and how to get it away from Lewis,” Angela agreed.

“Wouldn’t Lewis have been aware of the risk?” Gamay said.

“Lewis knew the risks of traveling through the wilderness. He had faced danger before and might have thought he could handle it.”

“Or,” Gamay said, “he could have been so driven to get to Washington that he figured the risk was worth it.’

“Maybe the danger was closer than he thought,” Paul said. “Neelly.”

“More contradictions,” Angela said. “Neelly said later that Lewis was deranged, but the group did a hundred and fifty miles in three days.”

“That’s a good trek for a crazy man,” Paul observed.

Angela nodded in agreement.

“The FortPickering commander was disturbed at reports that Neelly had urged Lewis to drink. Lewis’s Spanish servant Pernia was pushing booze on Lewis as well. Then Neelly lost two horses and told Lewis to go on ahead with the two servants while he searched for the animals.”

Gamay laughed. “If Lewis were deranged, why let him go ahead with the servants?”

“Good question,” Angela said. “But they broke up, and Lewis went on to Grinder’s Stand with Pernia and his slave servant.”

“Grinder’s Stand sounds like a place that makes submarine sandwiches,” Paul said.