about noon on September
Perhaps they did more for her , perhaps they thanked her more , than they have set down in their journals . Knowing them as we ought to , I rather think they did , but they were too shy to say much about it . So there at the Mandans we are obliged to leave some of our party . The others all reached St. Louis about noon on September 23d . `` What they must have left , how they were received is something which we do not need to take up now . At least , they were kept busy by their friends in St. Louis , be sure of that . `` And so closed that story of the two great travelers in whose footsteps we have been traveling this summer , my young friends .