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A Volunteer with Pike

by Robert Ames Bennet · English · Gutenberg #33091 · 611,383 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: A Volunteer with Pike

Author: Robert Ames Bennet

Illustrator: Charlotte Weber-Ditzler


        
Release date: July 5, 2010 [eBook #33091]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33091

Credits: Produced by Darleen Dove, Roger Frank, Mary Meehan and the
        Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A VOLUNTEER WITH PIKE ***




Produced by Darleen Dove, Roger Frank, Mary Meehan and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net









                         A VOLUNTEER WITH PIKE

            _The True Narrative of One Dr. John Robinson and
                of His Love for the Fair Senorita Vallois_

                         BY ROBERT AMES BENNET

         AUTHOR OF "FOR THE WHITE CHRIST," "INTO THE PRIMITIVE," ETC.

                  _With four Illustrations in color by_

                        CHARLOTTE WEBER-DITZLER


CHICAGO
A. C. McCLURG & CO.
1909

COPYRIGHT
BY A. C. MCCLURG & CO.
1909

Published October 2, 1909

Entered at Stationers' Hall, London

_All rights reserved_

THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.


              TO ONE
    WHO FOLLOWED AFTER PIKE TO
          THE GRAND PEAK
       HALF A CENTURY LATER
            MY FATHER


[Illustration: "'We go in now, senorita,' I said, offering her my arm"]




_Contents_


       I. THE ROSE IN THE MIRE

      II. PLAIN THOMAS JEFFERSON

     III. AT THE PRESIDENT'S HOUSE

      IV. SENORITA ALISANDA

       V. GULF AND BARRIER

      VI. THE WEB OF THE PLOTTER

     VII. SHIP AND CREW

    VIII. THE HOSPITABLE BLENNERHASSETTS

      IX. MY INDIAN TALE

       X. THE FATHER OF WATERS

      XI. GENERAL WILKINSON

     XII. AU REVOIR

    XIII. AGAINST THE CURRENT

     XIV. THE LURE

      XV. THE PAWNEE PERIL

     XVI. THE BARRIER OF ROCK

    XVII. THE GRAND PEAK

   XVIII. FAMINE AND FROST

     XIX. BEYOND THE BARRIER

      XX. A MESSAGE TO MY LADY

     XXI. HO FOR CHIHUAHUA!

    XXII. GLIMPSES OF FATE

   XXIII. THE HOUSE OF VALLOIS

    XXIV. THE SERENADE

     XXV. A VICTORY

    XXVI. A DEFEAT

   XXVII. HEART TO HEART

  XXVIII. A SPANISH BALL

    XXIX. THE INSULT

     XXX. THE DUEL

    XXXI. MY CROSS

   XXXII. THE MESSAGE

  XXXIII. IMPRESSED

   XXXIV. SHAME

    XXXV. UNDER THE LASH

   XXXVI. ACROSS THE GULF




_Illustrations_


"'We go in now, senorita,' I said, offering her my arm"

"We swung out into the current and drifted swiftly away"

"'The Grand Peak!' I shouted. 'We'll name it for you'"

"He fell like a steer: my sword blade broke clean off, a span beyond the
hilt"




_A Volunteer with Pike_

_The True Narrative of One Dr. John Robinson and of His Love for the
Fair Senorita Vallois_




CHAPTER I

THE ROSE IN THE MIRE


The first time I was blessed with a sight of the senorita was on the day
of my arrival in the Federal City,--in fact, it was upon my arrival. An
inquiry in the neighborhood of the President's House for my sole
acquaintance in the city, Senator Adair of Kentucky, had resulted in my
being directed to Conrad's boarding house on the Capitol Hill.

In the Fall of 1805 Indian Summer had lingered on through the month of
November. As a consequence, so I had been informed, Pennsylvania Avenue
was in a state of unprecedented passableness for the season. Yet as,
weary and travel-begrimed, I urged my jaded nag along the broad way of
yellow mud toward the majestic Capitol on its lofty hill, I observed
more than one coach and chariot in trouble from the chuck-holes of
semi-liquid clay.

It was midway of the avenue that I came upon _her_ coach, fast as a
grounded flatboat, both of the forewheels being mired to the hub. The
driver, a blear-eyed fellow, sat tugging at the reins and alternately
plying the whip and swearing villanously. I have ever been a lover of
horseflesh, and it cut me to see the sleek-coated, spirited pair plunge
and strain at the harness, in their brave efforts to perform a task
utterly beyond them.

I drew rein alongside. The driver stopped his cursing to stare at me,
purple-faced.

"Are you blind drunk?" I demanded. "They'll never make it without a lift
to the wheels."

"Lift!" he spluttered--"lift! Git along, ye greasy cooncap!"

He raised his whip as if to strike me. I reined my horse within
arm's-length.

"Put down that whip, or I'll put you down under the wheel," I said
cheerfully. He looked me in the eye for a moment; then he dropped his
gaze, and thrust the whipstock into its socket. "Good! You are well
advised. Now keep your mouth shut, and get off your coat."

Again I smiled, and again he obeyed. We Western men have a reputation on
the seaboard. It may have been this, or it may have been the fact that
my buckskin shirt draped a pair of lean shoulders quite a bit broader
than the average. At the least, the fellow kept his mouth closed and
started to strip off his coat.

I rode over to the nearest fence and borrowed two of the top rails.
Returning, I found the fellow in his shirt-sleeves. Yet he seemed not
over-willing to jump down into the mud. One more smile fetched him. He
took his rail and descended on the far side, muttering, while I swung
off at the head of his lathered team and stroked them. Once they had
been soothed and quieted, I dropped back, took the reins in hand, and
thrust my rail beneath the hub of the wheel. I heard the driver do the
same on his side.

"Ready?" I called.

"Ready, sir!" he answered.

A voice came from over my shoulder "_Por Dios!_ It is not possible,
senor, to lift. First I will descend."

The knowledge that I had put my shoulder to the wheel for a Spaniard
caused my tightening muscles to relax in disgust. But the don had spoken
courteously, his one thought being to relieve us of his weight, at the
risk of ruining his aristocratic boots.

"Sit still. _Quien sabe?_" I replied, without looking about, and bore up
on the rail. "Heave away!"

The rails bowed under the strain, but the clay held tenaciously to the
embedded wheels. I drew the reins well in and called to the willing
team. They put their weight against the breast bands steadily and
gallantly. The wheels rose a little, the coach gave forward.

"Heave!" I called. The wheels drew up and forward. "Steady! steady,
boys! Pull away!"

Out came the forewheels; in went the rear. We caught them on the turn.
One last gallant tug, and all was clear. The driver plodded around by
the rear, a hand at his forelock.

"Return the rails," I said. "I'll hold them."

He took my rail with his own and toiled over to the roadside. I called
up my horse and swung into the saddle, little the worse for my descent
into the midst of the redoubtable avenue, for my legs had already been
smeared and spattered to the thigh before I entered the bounds of the
city.

Again I heard the voice at the coach window: "_Muchas gracias_, senor! A
thousand thanks--and this."

He proved to be what I had surmised,--a long-faced Spanish don. What I
had not expected to see was the hand extended with the piece of silver.
There was more than mere politeness in his smile. It was evident he
meant well. None the less, I was of the West, where, in common opinion,
Spaniards are rated with the "varmints." I took the coin and dropped it
into the mire. He stared at me, astonished.

"Your pardon, senor," I said, "I am not a _Spanish_ gentleman."

The shot hit, as I could see by the quick change in the nature of his
smile.

"It is I who should ask pardon," he replied with the haughtiness of your
true Spanish hidalgo. "Yet the senor will admit that his appearance--to
a foreigner--"

"Few riders wear frills on the long road from Pittsburgh," I replied.

He bowed grandly and withdrew his head into the coach's dark interior. I
was about to turn around, when I heard a liquid murmuring of Spanish in
a lady's voice, followed by a protest from the don: "_Nada_, Alisanda!
There is no need. He is but an Anglo-American."

The voice riveted my gaze to the coach window in eager anticipation. Nor
was I disappointed. In a moment the cherry-wood of the opening framed a
face which caused me to snatch the coonskin cap from my wigless yellow
curls.

After four years of social life among the Spanish and French of St.
Louis and New Orleans, I had thought myself well versed in all the
possibilities of Latin beauty. The Senorita Alisanda was to all those
creole belles as a queen to kitchen maids. Eyes of velvety black, full
of pride and fire and languor; silky hair, not of the hard, glossy hue
of the raven's wing, but soft and warming to chestnut where the sun
shone through a straying lock; face oval and of that clear, warm pallor
unknown to women of Northern blood; a straight nose with well-opened,
sensitive nostrils; a scarlet-lipped mouth, whose kiss would have
thrilled a dying man. But he is a fool who seeks to set down beauty in a
catalogue. It was not at her eyes or hair or face that I gazed; it was
at her, at the radiant spirit which shone out through that lovely mask
of flesh.

She met my gaze with a directness which showed English training, as did
also the slightness of her accent. Her manner was most gracious, without
a trace of condescension, yet with an underlying note of haughtiness,
forgotten in the liquid melody of her voice.

"Senor, I trust that you will pardon the error of my kinsman,--my
uncle,--and that you will accept our thanks for the service."

"I am repaid,--a thousand times,--senorita!" I stammered, the while my
dazzled eyes drank in her radiant beauty.

She bowed composedly and withdrew into the gloom of the coach. That was
all. But it left me half dazed. Not until the driver trudged back and
reached for the reins did it come upon me that I was staring blankly in
through the empty window at the outline of the don's shoulder. The best
I can say is that I did not find my mouth agape.

A touch of my heel and a hint at the bit sent my nag jogging on toward
the Capitol, leaving the rescued coach to flounder along its opposite
way as best it could, through the avenue already famous for its two
miles of length, its hundred yards of width, and its two feet of depth.

Wearied as I was by the last of many days' hard riding from the Ohio, I
was the lighter for carrying with me a scarlet-lipped vision with eyes
like sloes.




CHAPTER II

PLAIN THOMAS JEFFERSON


It was the third day after my arrival in Washington. The clear sky,
which in the forenoon had lured me down from the Capitol Hill along the
forest-clad banks of the little Tiber, had brought at the noon hour a
warmth of sunshine that made by no means ungrateful the shade of a giant
tulip poplar.

I was lolling at my ease on the bank of the beautiful stream when a
rider broke cover from a thicket of azaleas and cantered toward me down
along the bank. The first glance at his horse brought me to my feet,
eager-eyed. It was one of the most mettlesome and shapely mounts I had
ever had the pleasure to view.

The rider, attracted perhaps by my ill-concealed admiration, drew up
before me with the easy control of a perfect horseman, and touched his
cocked hat.

"A pleasant day, sir, for a lover of wild Nature," he said.

His tone, though easy almost to familiarity, was underlaid with a quiet
dignity and reserve that brought my hand in turn to my high, stiff
beaver and my eyes to his face.

"A day, sir, to tempt even a botanist to forget his classifying," I
ventured at sight of the rooted plant of goldenrod in his hand.

He shook his long gray locks with a whimsical manner. "On the contrary,
I am of the opinion that the enjoyment of Nature should add zest to the
pursuits of Science."

"Since you put it so aptly, sir, I cannot but agree," I made answer,
smiling at his shrewdness. "In truth," I added, "this unusual
opportunity of enjoying _solidago odora_ so late in the season loses
nothing by the knowledge that the infusion of those selfsame fragrant
leaves is of service medicinally."

He met the careless glance accompanying my words with deepened interest
in his thoughtful eyes. Having had the greater part of my attention thus
far fixed upon the noble horse, I had not gone beyond my first
impression that the man was an overseer from some near-by plantation on
the Potomac. Now, roused to closer observation by his gaze, I perceived
that behind his homely features lay the brain of a man of much thought
and learning. With this I gave heed to the fact that his clothes, for
all their carelessness of cut and condition, were of the finest
materials.

I swept him the best of the bows I had acquired from the French creoles
of New Orleans.

"Can it be, sir, that chance has favored me with the acquaintance of a
fellow physician in what Mr. Gouverneur Morris has so aptly termed the
spoiled wilderness of Washington?" I asked. "If so, permit me to
introduce myself as a young but aspiring practitioner of the healing
art. My name, sir, is one often in the mouths of men,--Robinson,--Dr.
John H. Robinson."

Smiling at my attempt at wit, the gentleman swung to the ground before
me, and twitched the reins over the head of his spirited mount.

"You were walking toward the Capitol?" he inquired. I nodded assent.
"Then, by your leave, I will accompany you part of the way,--not that I
can claim the honor of membership in your most useful profession. I am
no more than a browser in the lush fields of philosophy. My name, sir,
is Thomas Jefferson."

For a moment I stood like a dolt. My hand went up to jerk off my
coonskin cap, and knocked smartly against the stiff brim of my beaver.
The touch recalled me to my dignity, and I flattered myself that my bow
and words would alike prove acceptable: "Your Excellency will pardon me!
Had I been aware--"

"You would have known that there are few things I hold in greater
detestation than such high-flown, aristocratic terms of address and such
undemocratic bendings," he cut in upon me, with a touch of asperity in
his quiet voice.

"I stand corrected, sir," I replied, straightening to my full six feet,
and seeking to cover my confusion with a smile. "It is not necessarily
proof of sycophancy that one has acquired his manners in New Orleans."

"True--true, and that is full explanation of what I must confess puzzled
me. You are from the far West, if I do not mistake, and our
frontiersmen, as a rule, are as deficient in courtly graces as the
European aristocrats are sycophantic. By your leave, we will be moving."

We swung about and sauntered up the stream bank, the horse following at
his master's heels, docile as a well-trained hound. For a time the
attention of my distinguished companion seemed fixed upon the romantic
arbors of wild grapes which overran the neighboring thickets. But as I
was about to remark on the beauty of the autumnal foliage, he turned to
me with a direct question: "Have you close acquaintance, sir, among the
people of St. Louis and New Orleans?"

"I have practised in both towns, sir, since the cession of Louisiana
Territory."

"And you found the former subjects of Spain and France well disposed
toward the Republic?"

"I regret to have to say, sir, that Governor Claiborne is not popular
even among our American residents of New Orleans."

The President looked at me doubtfully. "Claiborne is a man of undisputed
integrity."

"The creoles, Your Excellency, could better appreciate a degree of tact.
Governor Claiborne is too much the Western man in his attitude toward
people of another race."

"I cannot but trust that our release of them from subjection to
despotism--" He paused to study my face with a mild yet penetrating
gaze. We walked on for several paces before he again spoke. "I esteem
you to be a man of some little discernment, Dr. Robinson."

"You compliment me, sir. Having gone to the Mississippi fresh from my
medical studies in New York, it may be that I observed some features of
the Louisiana situation unnoted by the local factions. Though a
Westerner myself, I trust that four years in college on the seaboard has
enabled me to look upon events with a little less of our natural
trans-Alleghany prejudice."

"Ah! You are also acquainted in St. Louis--with General Wilkinson?
Perhaps you are intimate?"

"No!" I said. Before my mental vision rose the whiskey-flushed face and
portly figure of the pompous, fussy old General.

"You speak emphatically."

"Sir, I give you common opinion when I say there are few men of standing
in the Upper Territory, or in the Lower, for that matter, who would
trust the General out of sight either with their reputations or with
their purses."

My companion frowned as severely as it seemed his philosophic
temperament would permit. "You forget, sir, that you are speaking of
the Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the Republic."

"A commander whose appointment, it is said, was urged on the grounds
that it would keep him out of mischief,--a man who is charged with
having been implicated in all the separatist plots of the nineties."

"And if so, what then? With the removal of the misguided Federalists
from the control of public affairs, and the purchase of Louisiana
Territory, insuring for our Western river commerce the freedom of port
at New Orleans, all basis for the just complaints of the West have been
removed. I trust implicitly in the loyalty of the people of that great
region."

"What of the ovations given to Mr. Aaron Burr during his trip this past
season?"

"Greatly as I deplored, and still deplore, the death of Mr. Hamilton, it
is a fact that the duel terminated the political career of his
slayer,--the man whom we alike distrusted."

"Yet Colonel Burr was received with enthusiasm by nearly every man of
prominence west of Pittsburg. I might mention Senator Adair, young
General Jackson of the Tennessee militia, General Wilkinson, and our
richest New Orleans merchant, Mr. Daniel Clark."

"Very true; and easily accounted for by the reaction of sentiment
against the Federalist and partisan animus which procured Colonel Burr's
disfranchisement in the State of New York and his indictment for murder
in New Jersey. No; once for all, Colonel Burr has been removed as a
disturbing element in the politics of the Republic."

Having delivered this confident opinion, Mr. Jefferson stooped to pick
up an odd pebble, and after gazing at it a moment, abruptly changed the
subject. "The West takes some little interest, I trust, in the
expedition which I had some share in planning."

"You refer, sir, to the Northwest Expedition under the command of
Captain Lewis and the brother of Clark of Vincennes fame."

"The furtherance of unremunerative scientific research is one of the few
functions properly within the scope of an ideal government. I am hopeful
of valuable results from this expedition as regards the advancement
alike of geography, botany, zooelogy, and mineralogy."

"I trust, sir, that you will be equally gratified by the results of the
exploration of the Mississippi by my friend Lieutenant Pike."

"Pike?--Pike?--Ah, the son of Major Zebulon Pike of the Revolution.
General Wilkinson duly informed the Secretary of War that he had sent
young Pike up the river with a small party. But it is a purely military
expedition, equipped by the General on his own initiative; although I
may add that his action in the matter has since received the approval of
the Government."

"That last statement, sir, is of no little satisfaction to myself as a
friend of Lieutenant Pike. I am sure that he will quit himself of his
service with no small credit. Allow me to speak of him as one of the
Republic's most able and patriotic young soldiers."

"So I have been informed. On the other hand, the young man lacks the
scientific attainments most desirable in the leader of such an
expedition."

My heart gave a bound that sent the blood tingling to my finger-tips.

"Mr. President," I exclaimed, "the Government is doubtless aware that
General Wilkinson has in view another expedition,--one to proceed
westward to treat with the tribes of the great plains and to explore the
western boundaries between Louisiana Territory and New Spain. I am, sir,
only too well aware of my lack of standing alike with the General and
with the Government, yet I believe I can say, with all due modesty, that
I possess somewhat the scientific attainments you mention as
desirable--"

I stopped short upon meeting the growing reserve in my companion's mild
gaze. He smiled not unkindly.

"I did not state, Dr. Robinson, that such attainments were the sole
requisites. Moreover, this expedition, if in truth such a one is
contemplated, rests wholly upon the discretion of General Wilkinson, and
will no doubt be of a military character."

"Yet, if I may venture, could not Your Excellency--"

The President stopped and regarded me with severity. "I have already
remarked, sir, that such adulatory titles--"

"Pardon me, Mr. Jefferson!" I cried.

His look did not relax. "Nor 'Mister' Jefferson, if you please, sir. I
am Thomas Jefferson, the servant of the people and a plain citizen of
the Republic,--no more, no less."

Knowing the greatness of the man behind this small foible, I bowed
acquiescence to the statement, and he, smiling gravely in response,
added with cordiality: "As I have intimated, the Executive will not
interfere with any proper plans which General Wilkinson may deem
expedient. Yet I will say that, in the event he carries out the
contemplated expedition to our Western boundaries, I should be pleased
to hear of such a well-qualified assistant as yourself being included in
the party as a volunteer."

I covered my disappointment with the best smile I could muster: "In that
event, sir, I fear that I must repress my adventurous longings."

I bowed and stepped aside for him to pass on. He mounted with easy
agility, but checked his over-willing horse for a parting remark: "Sir,
I am pleased to have met you. I shall be more pleased to meet you at my
table this evening."

Before I could recover from my astonishment he had touched his hat
civilly, and was cantering away across country.




CHAPTER III

AT THE PRESIDENT'S HOUSE


It will not be thought strange that my invitation to dine with the
President put me in high conceit with myself, and this notwithstanding
such information as I had already acquired as to the looseness and
informality of the White House etiquette since the retirement of
President Adams. Although Mr. Jefferson's custom was to invite many
kinds of persons to his elegant little dinners, the guests were
generally selected for their compatibility.

On the other hand, my elation was tempered by the fact that another
result of my chance meeting with His Excellency in the woods had been a
sharp dashing of the hopes which had brought me to Washington. I refer
to the matter of General Wilkinson's contemplated expedition to the
West. Having reasons of my own for not wishing to apply to the
Commander-in-Chief for the leadership of the expedition, I had come on
to the Federal City in the fond hope of receiving the appointment from
the Secretary of War. Fate had given me the opportunity of making my
modest request direct to the source of all Federal patronage, with the
results which have been stated.

It was therefore without undue elation that, dressed in my small-clothes
and new coat, my best shirt-frill, and highest pudding cravat, I jogged
north along the redoubtable avenue which, only three days before, had
seen me ride south in my buckskins. My horse, feeling his oats after his
days in stall, fretted at the sober pace I set him. A word or even a
touch would have put him into full gallop, for all the depth of the
mire. Yet, even had I not been in so grave a frame of mind, I had my
silk stockings and fine buckled shoes to consider.

In due time we came to the grassy common about the Presidential mansion,
and entered the iron gate in the high rock wall built by Mr. Jefferson
to enclose the noble building. On dismounting, my first surprise of the
evening was that I should be ushered in by a white attendant. I had
expected that Mr. Jefferson would be served by slaves from his great
plantation at Monticello. Later I learned that he preferred to hire his
entire corps of servants, some thirty or more, all of whom were white.

Upon giving my name as one of the dinner guests, I was shown into a
pleasant, spacious room, which, from a remark dropped by the attendant,
I understood to be the President's cabinet. My first glance took in a
view of walls lined with well-filled bookcases, globes, charts, and
maps; my second, a brighter picture of window recesses filled with roses
and geraniums, in the midst of which was embowered a cage with a
mocking-bird; my third glance followed down the long table in the
centre of the room to where the tall, slender figure of my illustrious
host was rising in courteous greeting.

My second surprise of the evening lay in my recognition of the handsome,
dashing little man who sat regarding me, alert and keen-eyed, from the
far corner of the table. I had seen that sanguine, high-spirited face
before, many a weary mile west of Washington.

The President met my advance with a benignant smile: "You are in very
good season, Dr. Robinson. I am pleased that you did not forget my hasty
invitation."

"One does not easily forget such an honor from Thomas Jefferson," I
responded.

"Tut, tut!" he reproved, and turning to his companion, who rose with
graceful ease and quickness, said, "Colonel Burr, I wish to introduce
Dr. Robinson--Dr. John H. Robinson of New Orleans--"

"Now of St. Louis," I corrected.

"Of St. Louis."

Had I been the President himself, Colonel Burr's bow could not have been
more considerate or his smile more winning.

"If I missed the pleasure of an introduction to Dr. Robinson in New
Orleans, it was not due to lack of desire on my part," he said.
"Governor Claiborne and Mr. Daniel Clark alike spoke highly of your
merits, sir."

"That Colonel Burr should remember such chance remarks concerning an
unknown young doctor is indeed a compliment," I replied. "You were
pointed out to me, sir, at the dinner given you by Governor Claiborne.
An urgent professional call compelled me to leave before I could obtain
an introduction. But my misfortune in missing the honor of meeting you,
alike in New Orleans and upon your subsequent visit to St. Louis, will
now, I trust, be offset by the pleasure of your company as a fellow
guest."

"I had in mind that you would count yourself among the Western
well-wishers of Colonel Burr," remarked Mr. Jefferson, eying me as I
thought with a certain sharpness. "My idea for this dinner was a party
whose members would share a common interest in Louisiana affairs."

As he finished speaking, the President stepped past me toward the door
by which I had entered. Colonel Burr promptly took his place, still
smiling suavely, but keen-eyed as a hawk.

"Sir," he asked, in a low and eager voice, "may I indeed count you among
my Western friends?"

It may have been the magnetism of the man, or possibly only the
suddenness of the question, but I found myself answering without
thought, "We are all your well-wishers, sir."

He smiled and gave me a significant glance which I did not half
understand and liked still less. The words were on my tongue's tip to
correct his evident misconception of my hasty answer, when he, in turn,
stepped past me, bowing and smiling. I turned about, and received my
third surprise. The President and Mr. Burr were exchanging bows with my
Spanish don of the mired carriage!

Great as was my astonishment, I intercepted and unconsciously made
mental note of the look of understanding which as I turned was passing
between the don and Colonel Burr.

The former flashed a glance of inquiry from myself to the President, who
met it with his ungraceful but ready courtesy--"Don Pedro Vallois, Dr.
John H. Robinson."

"And my good friend, senor!" added Mr. Burr, with a warmth of tone that
astonished me.

Senor Vallois responded to my bow with one as punctiliously polite as it
was haughty. There was no sign of recognition in his cold eyes. The
opportunity was too tempting to forgo.

"I trust, senor, that you were not again stalled, and have not been
required to inhabit the centre of the avenue these past three days," I
remarked.

At this he gazed at me with more interest. No doubt my voice jogged his
memory, for in a moment his eye kindled, and he grasped my hand with the
heartiness of an Englishman.

"_Por Dios!_ It is our _caballero_ of the mire!"

"The same, senor. It is good fortune which brings us together as guests
of His Excellency the President," I replied, thinking to divert the
conversation. It was in vain.

"How?--What is this, senor? You know Dr. Robinson?" questioned Colonel
Burr, his eyes sparkling not altogether pleasantly, and his lips
tightening beneath their smile.

Senor Vallois waved his hand for attention and proceeded, with much
detail and elaboration, to recount my simple feat with the fence rails.
In the midst entered the Honorable Henry Dearborn, the Secretary of War,
to whom I had been introduced on the day of my arrival by Senator Adair.
His curt nod of recognition forestalled an introduction by Mr.
Jefferson, and the senor's account proceeded to the end without
interruption.

Mr. Jefferson and Colonel Burr were alike pleased to give the senor
close attention. The former was first to make his comment,--"A friendly
deed, and one seldom met with nowadays."

Colonel Burr was not content so to spare my modesty.

"Friendly!" he exclaimed, "friendly! Gallant is the word, sir! We read
of Raleigh spreading his cloak for a queen. Here is an American
gentleman who plunges into the mire to pry out a lady's coach, an act by
far the more gallant!" He faced about to give me a knowing smile. "You
saw the lady beckoning from the carriage window, and, of course, beauty
in distress--"

"_Santisima Virgen!_ My niece beckon to a stranger in the highway!"
protested Senor Vallois, in a tone that would have compelled a far
duller man than Colonel Burr to realize his mistake.

"Your pardon, senor!" he hastened to explain. "A mere figure of speech.
I infer that the lady looked out, and Dr. Robinson, chancing to see
her--"

"No, no, Colonel!" I broke in. "I cannot lay claim to the gallantry with
which you would credit me. It was the needless lashing of the horses
which prompted me to the action."

"The more credit to your kindliness, sir," remarked Mr. Jefferson, with
a heartiness which added to my embarrassment. The nod of assent and warm
glance of General Dearborn in part consoled me for the stress of the
situation.

Whether the grave look of Senor Vallois indicated approval or
disapproval of my disclaimer of gallantry I could not tell. But Colonel
Burr was open in his protest.

"What! what!" he cried. "Is this the manner of the coming generation?
Have romance and gallantry fled with the peruke?"

He looked from my loose, unpowdered curls to the Spaniard's costly wig.

"Youth will have its day," said General Dearborn, offering him his
snuff-box. Mr. Burr took a pinch with the affected elegance of a beau.
The dose was of such strength that the sneeze which followed flapped the
Colonel's queue and lifted a cloud of powder from his hair. The
President, Senor Vallois, and myself having in turn declined the box,
General Dearborn complemented the Colonel with a sneeze that stirred his
own thin queue and powder.

Mr. Jefferson made some remark commending the growing simplicity of
fashion with regard to the dressing of the hair. He was interrupted by
the entrance of a small, stoutish gentleman in black broadcloth, who
bowed familiarly to the President and General Dearborn, and formally to
Colonel Burr. I learned without delay that the newcomer was no less a
personage than the Secretary of State, for Mr. Jefferson at once
presented to him first the senor and then myself.

The introduction brought me to a full realization of the honor which had
been conferred upon me. That such notable men as my fellow guests should
be dining with the President was a matter of course, but that I should
be present as a member of so distinguished a party was, I flattered
myself, a most signal honor for an unknown young doctor.

The situation was in part explained by the President, who, as Mr.
Madison met my bow with a penetrating glance of his mild blue eyes,
remarked, in his easy, informal manner: "My secretary had a fall while
riding to the hounds, and Dr. Robinson has been so good as to take his
place with us this evening. Dr. Robinson is conversant with matters
pertaining to Louisiana Territory."

A servant appeared at the door of the drawing-room, and Mr. Jefferson
moved forward beside Senor Vallois, with a word of explanation: "We will
join the ladies, gentlemen."




CHAPTER IV

SENORITA ALISANDA


My wits would have been those of a dolt had I not foreseen the
possibility of the presence of Senorita Alisanda in the drawing-room.
The chance of so favorable a meeting set my nerves to tingling between
delighted anticipation and dread of disappointment.

Thanks to my ruddy coloring and a natural erectness of bearing, I
followed the others to the door with a fair show of confidence,
notwithstanding that I had to endure the contrast of so polished a
gentleman as Mr. Burr. As we advanced, he had promptly placed himself at
my side, in the rear of the others, his yielding of precedence being, as
I was not too dull to perceive, a most subtle attempt to flatter me.

That I was flattered was not strange, as may be testified to by those
who have come in personal contact with the man. Yet for all his winning
manner I gave little heed to his words, my thoughts being fixed on the
delicious possibility of an immediate meeting with my glorious lady of
the avenue.

Imagine the bitterness of my disappointment, upon entering the
drawing-room, to see no one in the remotest degree resembling the
senorita among the ladies who awaited our presence. While Senor Vallois
was being introduced I had a moment to glance about the room, with the
disheartening result that I nowhere saw the graceful figure which I had
hoped to discover screened by the shabby crimson damask of the
furniture.

The voice of Mr. Jefferson recalled me to the ladies, and I found myself
making a melancholy bow to Mrs. Randolph, his surviving daughter. She in
turn presented me to the other ladies,--of whose persons and appearance,
out of the medley of muslins and fans, bright eyes, bared busts, and
thinly veiled forms, I retain only the remembrance that one was Mrs.
Dearborn, another a Mrs. Smith, daughter of the renowned Senator Bayard
of Delaware, and a third Mrs. Madison. Of the fourth lady, whose name I
did not catch, I recall that she was an elderly dame of sedate manners,
but far other than sedate in her compliance with the extreme mode. Her
gray curls were all but dripping with pomade, and the gore in the left
side of her narrow skirt extended up above mid-thigh. Her jewelled
garter was the handsomest one visible, for which reason, I presume, it
was more openly displayed than those of the other ladies.

Mrs. Madison, petite and charming, notwithstanding her plainness of
feature and the fact that she was nearer forty than thirty, promptly
rallied me upon my look of depression. The Colonel and Mrs. Smith joined
forces with "Dolly," as the latter addressed her, so that I was
compelled to smile, if only to save myself from a general onslaught.

"That is better!" exclaimed Mrs. Madison. "He, a doctor! to think of
dining with so gloomy a countenance!"

"Above all, to think of any other than a smiling face in _your_
presence!" chimed in Mr. Burr. "I had not thought it possible of one who
has proved that he can be gallant even to horses."

At this there was a chorus of curious questions. I turned, seeking a way
of escape, and discovered that I was all but touching elbows with my
lady of the mire!

Presently I found myself bowing. Though still half bewildered, I
realized that I was being introduced to her as Miss Vallois, the niece
of Senor Vallois.

Colonel Burr, who had been introduced with the other gentlemen while I
stood in my daze, now sought to engage her attention. His eye for
feminine charm and beauty is as well known as is his success with the
ladies. With such a rival, my utter loss of composure doubtless would
have resulted quickly in the more serious loss of the lady's attention,
had she not at the last moment recognized me as the buckskin
_caballero_.

With a glance of frank pleasure which came near to finishing me on the
spot, she signed gracefully to her uncle: "_Santa Maria!_ It is he--the
_caballero_ who so kindly came to our assistance!"

"I have already expressed to the senor the full measure of our gratitude
for his service," replied Don Pedro, in a tone which recalled the girl
to her first manner of polite hauteur.

"Permit me to join my thanks to those of my kinsman," she said to me.

Nettled by the condescension of her tone and bearing, I shook off my
daze, and rejoined with more wit than courtesy, "Believe me, senorita,
no thanks are due me other than from your coach horses."

Another chorus of questions demanded the explanation, and Colonel Burr
responded by telling over Don Pedro's account in the form of a wittily
brilliant anecdote. I listened unheeding, for my gaze was fixed upon
Senorita Alisanda.

At my rude reply her eyes had flashed with a look before which my own
dropped,--though not to the floor. As she drew back a step in her
displeasure, my gaze dwelt adoringly upon the graces of her lissome
form. She was tall, yet not unduly slender, and the queenly dignity and
beauty of her presence were enhanced by the flowing lines of her dress.

Of the dress itself I can only say that it was of scarlet sarsenet,
covered in part by an overdrape of silver spangles on white _crepe_,
and, in compliance with the Empire mode, cut low enough in the waist to
expose her dazzling shoulders and bosom. Her arms, rounding up from the
small hands and slender wrists as if carved from new ivory, were bare to
the bows of black ribbon on her shoulders. Close about her perfect
throat, in place of the usual ruffs, was a double string of black
pearls. Notwithstanding the universal acceptance of the new fashions, I
had great pleasure in the fact that she had not sacrificed her beautiful
hair for a wig.

But, needless to say, I gave slight heed to her dress. My fascinated
eyes dropped their gaze to the little arched foot which peeped from
beneath the raised front of her dress, snugly cased in its
diamond-buckled slipper of scarlet satin. The foot drew back out of
view, and I looked up in time to catch a faint tinge of pink beneath the
clear ivory of my lady's cheeks. Her look was, if possible, more haughty
than before. Yet, emboldened by that faint blush and the intoxication of
her beauty, I met her gaze with such a glow in my steel-gray eyes that
this time it was hers that lowered.

A change in the light chatter of the company forced me to spare them a
glance. Senor Vallois and Mrs. Randolph were leading the way to the
dining-room, and the others were pairing off to follow, in a most
informal manner. I saw Colonel Burr turning toward us, which spurred me
to instant action.

"We go in now, senorita," I said, offering her my arm.

Mr. Burr flashed me a whimsical glance, between disappointment and
commendation, and turned to the nearest lady. At the same time the
senorita looked up. Seeing the others all in couples, she hesitated
only a moment before accepting my arm.

Of the dining-room I can state no more than that it was a very long
apartment, that the furniture was exceedingly plain, and that we sat at
an oval table, whose shape was supposed to bring all present face to
face.

Thanks to the close imitation of Parisian society at New Orleans, to
which I had enjoyed the _entree_, I managed to conduct my unwilling
partner to the table with a _haut ton_ that brought an uplift in the
brows of more than one of my fellow guests. My elation over this success
was short-lived. Colonel Burr adroitly placed himself on her other hand,
and for a time I saw no more of her scarlet lips and dusky eyes. Both
were given freely to the Colonel, whose reputation was only too well
known.

I might have sought to console myself with the rareness of the wines and
the epicurean delicacy of the food. The service was simple, yet refined,
the cooking such that I at once recognized the art of a Frenchman. Yet
even the Madeira failed to cheer me. I could only sit silent over my
plate and steal lackadaisical glances at the rounded shoulder which my
partner so cruelly turned upon me, and at the silky maze of sable hair
which crowned her shapely head.

Until now my feeling toward Colonel Burr had been uncertain, vaguely
doubtful, yet by no means hostile. It now hardened of a sudden into
deep-seated aversion. So little has reason to do with the affairs of
men--and women!

To show the depth of resentment into which my passion flung me, I need
only say that I conned over in my memory the fatal meeting between Mr.
Burr and Mr. Hamilton, and exulted that I might be able to avenge the
great Federalist and myself at the same time by challenging the Colonel
to a like encounter. For all his sinister reputation as a duellist, at
that moment I would gladly have met him with any weapons he might
choose.

Either because of my look, or, what was the more probable, because of
his well-known aversion to a divided conversation at table, Mr.
Jefferson broke in upon the Colonel's _tete-a-tete_ with so shrewd a
question regarding the Louisiana situation that Mr. Burr was required to
answer at some length.

This fresh turn of the conversation the President, with seeming
ingenuousness, deflected to me, so that, from being the one silent
member of the party, I found myself most unexpectedly the main speaker
and the centre of attention. By keeping well within the bounds of my
certain information, I was able to hold my own in the general discussion
which followed, and to reply to all questions with a fair degree of
fluency, although subjected by each of the gentlemen in turn to a
cross-examination as keen and pointed as it was lightly uttered.

"And your opinion of the Spanish boundaries?" asked Mr. Madison at last.
It was a question which I had expected from the first,--the question of
all questions among my fellow-denizens of Louisiana Territory.

"We have him there!" said Colonel Burr, as I paused over my reply.

Even the ladies bent forward to catch my words, and I was not surprised
to see that Senor Vallois betrayed still more interest than the other
gentlemen. For the first time my partner turned and fixed her eyes upon
me. I stated my opinion without further hesitancy.

"As to the West Florida boundary," I said, "there can be no doubt. Spain
is in the right."

"Your proof?" demanded Colonel Burr.

I cited such clauses bearing upon the point in the Spanish and French
treaties as were known, and other facts which I had heard mentioned by
Mr. Daniel Clark.

"A plausible statement," remarked General Dearborn. "But with regard to
the other Spanish line--the Texas boundary?"

"As to that, would not the opinions of Senor Vallois and Colonel Burr be
more authoritative?" I countered. "Colonel Burr at least should be
well-grounded as to the points in controversy, in view of his high
standing as a lawyer and the commonly accredited report in the West that
he is negotiating for permission to found a colony within the Spanish
territory."

"It is the first I have heard of the undertaking," remarked the
President, with evident surprise. "You did not mention it to me,
Colonel, at our meeting the other day."

"Had Your Excellency then considered it expedient to give me the
ministry for which I asked, I should have had no need to enter upon
speculative projects," returned Mr. Burr, exposing his humiliating
rebuff by Mr. Jefferson with a cynical frankness which it was plainly to
be seen disconcerted not only the President but his eminent secretaries
as well. Mr. Burr paused a moment to enjoy the confusion of his great
adversary, then continued: "The project of a colony is as yet indefinite
in my mind. I have considered the possibility of retrieving my fortunes
by the purchase of four or five hundred thousand acres in the midst of
the most fertile tract of Texas,--on the Washita River."

"Ah, Texas!" exclaimed Mrs. Madison, turning to Senor Vallois. "Is it
not the question of the Texas line which most threatens to terminate our
fair relations with your Government?"

"Such is the fact, senora," replied the don, with marked reserve.

Mrs. Randolph addressed my partner: "Your uncle takes you to Chihuahua
by way of Texas, I believe you said, Miss Vallois."

"No, madam. I fear I was not clear in my explanations. Senor Vallois had
intended to return that way before it was decided that I should
accompany him from England."

"We go by way of Vera Cruz," explained Senor Vallois.

"So long a voyage!" exclaimed Mrs. Smith. "I should have imagined the
passage from England would have wearied you of the water for a
lifetime."

"We came in one of your American packet ships, and were only
twenty-seven days in crossing," replied the senorita.

"Only twenty-seven days on the ocean!" I exclaimed--"twenty-seven days!"

"It is not an extraordinarily quick passage, with favorable weather and
our American-built ships," remarked Mr. Madison.

"Believe me, sir, it was not the shortness but the length of the voyage
which compelled my exclamation," I explained. "Miss Vallois will pardon
me if I express my admiration of her heroism. I once made a trip from
New York to Boston by schooner. I came back on a horse."

This statement was met with a gust of mirth, no doubt due more to the
wine which had gone before it than to its wit. Yet it served to throw
the conversation into a lighter vein, that ended in a run of repartee as
sparkling as the champagne with which it was accompanied. In this
contest of wit and airy nothings I soon found myself as far
out-distanced as the others were outstripped by Colonel Burr.

Again my partner gave me her shoulder, and my sole consolation for the
slight was that she joined but little in the contest, and met the
Colonel's gallantry with a reserve unmistakably evident in the poise of
her head and the coldness of her perfect profile. She could be haughty
with others no less than with myself.

Although she did not favor me with a single glance, the half-averted
view of her adorably curved cheek and an occasional glimpse of her
profile were far preferable to nothing. All too early, Mrs. Randolph
gave the signal for the ladies to withdraw.

In rising, whether by accident or design, the senorita turned toward me.
Her eyes were nearer on a level with my own than those of any other
young lady I had ever faced, and the erectness of her carriage, so
different from the drooping French pose, added to the effect of proud
height. She met me with a full open gaze, as devoid of allurement as it
was of repellence and hauteur. I seemed to be looking down into the
depths of fathomless wells, within which was nothing but velvety
darkness.

It was but a moment, and she had turned away with the others, leaving me
mystified. Nor could I puzzle out the meaning of the look during the two
hours I sat with the other gentlemen, matching them glass after glass,
and with them growing steadily more mirthful over the witticisms of
Colonel Burr, which were more notable for point than for decorum.

The fine and costly wines of our illustrious host stirred me to this
false mirth, behind which, as behind a mask, I found my inner self
constantly reverting to the thought of my lady's strange glance. But try
as I might, I could not so much as guess at its meaning. As I have said,
it had held nothing either of attraction or of repulsion; it had not
expressed even the barest curiosity--only that fathomless depth of
mystery.

All the more was I eager for the signal to rejoin the ladies in the
drawing-room. Another look, I thought, would give me the key to the
puzzle, a trace to point me along the way of her meaning.

At last Mr. Jefferson saw fit to lead us in to the ladies, a servant
following with the coffee. I pressed in close after Senor Vallois, and,
like him, looked about in vain for his niece. Mrs. Randolph hastened to
explain to him that Miss Vallois had only just withdrawn, on the plea of
a slight indisposition. The senor immediately excused himself, saluting
us all with punctilious bows and a sonorous "_Adios!_" and withdrew.

After his departure the ladies were pleased to bestow on me some little
attention, and in their seemingly artless manner drew from me much
regarding my family, my education, and my fortune,--or, as I should say,
my ambitions; for my fortune as yet lay mostly in the future. Presently,
to my surprise, I found myself invited to call at as many homes as there
were ladies present. This was an honor entirely unexpected by me, in
view of the fact that I could claim neither political prestige nor
distinguished birth. The disregard for the latter may have been due to
Mr. Jefferson's well-known Jacobin principles, the reflection of which
is clearly perceptible in the attitude of the greater number of his
intimates.

The gentlemen were almost equally cordial when the time came for me to
withdraw, General Dearborn alone maintaining a certain reserve, due, as
I surmised, to anticipations of a formal application for Government
favors.

At the last moment Colonel Burr remarked that he intended to stop over
another day before going on to Philadelphia, and gave me his address,
followed by a cordial invitation to call. I replied with an expression
of thanks for the honor and withdrew before he could pin me down to an
outright acceptance.




CHAPTER V

GULF AND BARRIER


There may be more disagreeable tasks than waiting on the uncertain favor
of public officials. If so, I have never chanced upon them. Backed by
letters of introduction from prominent men in New Orleans and St. Louis
and by my father's old-time friend Senator Adair of Kentucky, I had
thought to obtain the coveted leadership of the westward expedition for
the asking.

To my surprise, even the letter of so great a merchant as Daniel Clark
met with scant consideration from the Eastern office-holders, and
Senator Adair soon confessed to his lack of influence with the
Government with regard to my interest. At the same time he intimated to
me that should I be able to gain the good word of Colonel Burr, it was
not unlikely I might receive my appointment direct from General
Wilkinson.

"But, sir," I protested, "what has Colonel Burr to do with a military
expedition planned by the Commander-in-Chief of the Army?"

The Senator gave me a sharp glance, and considered for some moments
before replying: "Young man, one of the greatest aids to success in life
is the ability to recognize helpful friends. I have received a letter
from Colonel Burr in the last Philadelphia post. You met him at the
President's House, and I gather from his remarks regarding the occasion
that he was greatly taken with yourself."

"Unfortunately the favorable impression was not mutual," I said.

"It is indeed unfortunate--for you, John," reproved the Senator. "Such
men as Colonel Burr can pick and choose from thousands."

"I am willing to be passed over."

"Tut! a boyish whim! Do not say no to me. You will cultivate the
friendship of the Colonel." I made an impatient gesture. "At the least,
you will not rebuff him."

"Sir, I have not sought his advances. But since it is you who ask, I
will not take positive stand against him."

"That is better. It might be more--yet enough for the time. Let me tell
you, John, Colonel Burr is still a man of mark in this Republic, and I
shall be vastly surprised if he does not add laurels to those he has
already gathered."

"It is I who am surprised," I replied. "A once successful politician,
now discredited from Maine to Virginia,--a man who seven years ago tied
with Mr. Jefferson in the vote for the Presidency, and last election was
all but unanimously rejected, alike by the people and by the electoral
college,--for you to speak of such a man winning other laurels!"

"You forget the West."

"The West?"

"Consider his reception west of the Alleghanies this past year,--his
triumphant progress from Pittsburg to New Orleans and return."

"The West will elect no Presidents in many years to come."

The Senator gave me an odd look. "Perhaps not--perhaps not. These people
of the original States would not consider it a possibility even of the
remotest future," he murmured. Again he considered. At last, "Has it
occurred to you, John, that this expedition may have other object than
the exploration of our Western boundaries?"

"There will be treaties to make with the powerful tribes of plains
Indians,--the Pawnees and perhaps the Ietans, or Comanches, as some call
them."

"Ah, yes; with the Pawnees--and others. Did you never hear it said that,
could an overland trade with Santa Fe be established, it would be of no
small profit to those fortunate enough to obtain the concession from the
Spanish authorities? Santa Fe is the nearest gateway to the mines of
Mexico,--to El Dorado."

"I know a certain Senor Liza of St. Louis who would not forego a chance
to join in such a venture," I replied.

"True--true. But he is a Spanish Creole, and, I fear, not too well
disposed toward us. My point is, would it be too great an improbability
that a certain projected expedition should chance to come in friendly
touch with the authorities of northern New Spain?"

Having given me food for thought to last me many a day, the Senator
dropped the subject. During all my subsequent months of waiting I could
not induce him to discuss it again.

The time of this conversation was the third week of my stay in
Washington. Being well supplied with funds and on agreeable terms both
socially and professionally with Dr. Frederick May, I had settled down
in my comfortable boarding-house, prepared, if need were, to besiege the
Government throughout the Winter. Should I fail to attain my desired
end, I had only to return West to find a fair practice awaiting me
either at St. Louis or New Orleans. At the worst there would be ample
recompense for my expenditures in the experience of a Winter in the
Federal City.

Even had I been certain of the rejection of the formal application
which, a few days after the dinner at the White House, I had placed on
file in the War Office, I should have prolonged my stay for some time.
Within the week I had taken advantage of the invitations to call
tendered me by the ladies of the President's party. Within another week
I found myself fairly launched in the social swim.

It is not remarkable that a man well under thirty, who has spent many of
his years riding the wilderness traces, should plunge into social
affairs with a zest unknown to the city dweller. To this zest there was
added in my case the keen desire to meet again my haughty Senorita
Alisanda. Yet devote myself as I might to attendance at balls, _fetes_,
dinners, routs, and calls innumerable, it was only to meet with repeated
disappointments. Although, thanks to the kindness of Dr. May and my lady
patronesses, there were few social gatherings, small or great, to which
I was not invited, I failed to gain another meeting with the lady of my
heart. She was not present even at the grand New Year's _fete_ at the
White House, when Mr. Jefferson, as was his custom, received and
entertained all Washington.

That I was desperately in love with the senorita I had soon found myself
compelled to admit. For nothing less than the depth and passion of my
feeling could have prevented me from laughing myself out of it for the
sheer absurdity of such a thing.

Reared among a people whose daughters marry at sixteen and their sons at
nineteen and twenty, I had safely survived my calf-love, had even run
the seductive gantlet of the creole belles of New Orleans,--only to fall
victim in my mature twenties to the first glance of this haughty Spanish
senorita. What could I hope from one who doubtless regarded me as our
Western girls regard the red Indian? I do not mean with the like horror,
but with a like contempt.

Not alone was she a Spanish Catholic, to whom marriage with a heretic
would mean little less than sacrilege,--she was the daughter of a
Castilian family whose name implied kinship with one of the royal houses
of France. I was a man without a grandfather, and, what gave me real
concern, a citizen of a Republic which, in return for the carrying trade
of the world, was grovelling at the feet of England and France,
submissive to their contemptuous kicks.

True, Spain also bowed beneath the iron hand of Napoleon, but it was
because of the might of that hand, and not, as with us, because of a
willingness to endure shame rather than part with the commerce of which
our humiliation was the price. Far better war and death than such barter
of principles for gold!

As I thought of my abject countrymen I did not wonder that my lady had
looked upon me with hauteur; and yet I could not but reflect on the
graciousness of her thanks from the carriage window and that inscrutable
glance at our last parting. Hope interpreted the glance to mean that she
was heart-free and to be won by him who could stir her heart. Despair
said that she had gone forever beyond my reach, to the far distant home
of her uncle in New Spain. One answer to this last was the wild fancy
that, could I but attain the leadership of the Western expedition, I
might penetrate the wilderness and seek her out in the midst of her
people.

At the height of my fantastic scheming, gossip at last enlightened me to
the fact that my lady was yet in the city, stopping with a humble family
of Catholics, and precluded from attendance at social functions by the
absence of her uncle on a trip to Philadelphia.

Rumor added that the senor had gone to the old Capitol in company with
Colonel Burr, who, having spent much time at the British Legation with
Mr. Merry, the English Minister, had hurried North to confer with the
Marquis de Casa Yrujo. But Rumor and Colonel Burr were old bedmates, and
I gave little heed to the report at the time.

My interest was centred on the joyous news that the senorita was still
in Washington, not upon the curious information that her uncle and
Colonel Burr were supposed to have business with the Spanish Minister,
who, though he had severed diplomatic relations with our Government some
months since, yet lingered at Philadelphia.

Significant as should have been this report to one with my interests and
information, I must confess that not even the mention of Senor Vallois
drew second thought from me. For the time being my whole intent was to
find myself once more in the presence of the senorita. The question was
how and where? She was not to be seen in society, and I was not quite so
mad as to thrust myself in upon her at her retreat.

Hope flamed up again when all seemed darkest. As is well known to all
people of information, the Sunday assemblage in the Hall of
Representatives at the Capitol is frequently varied by the preaching of
distinguished clergymen of various sects and denominations. Being rather
given to Free Thought, though not to Atheism, I had thus far refrained
from attending these quasi-official services, much as I had heard about
them as the social levees of the city.

Chance, however, brought to Washington a noted Catholic bishop, and the
announcement that he would preach the following Sabbath in place of the
chaplain stirred me with the hope of a pleasant possibility. That Sunday
I went early to the assemblage hall, dressed in my best attire, my chin
swathed high enough by my pudding cravat to shame a London beau, my
trousers cut to the most modish, baggy shape and flapping loosely about
my shins.

Early as I arrived, I found no small part of the crowd ahead of me, and
I had to thrust and elbow my way here and there among the beaux, across
the hall, before I could satisfy myself that the senorita was not
present. Dashed, but by no means disheartened, I chose a post of vantage
on the elevated edge of a niche, from which I could watch the entrance.

Already I had had occasion to make my bows to the fashionably costumed
dames and misses whose gay talk and manners lent to the Hall more the
aspect of a ballroom than that of a house of worship or a legislative
chamber. As the company thronged in the gallant Representatives yielded
their seats to the ladies and stood beside them if acquainted, or, if
the fair ones came attended, left the aisles to the escorts and
withdrew into the lobbies or warmed themselves at the fireplaces.

Seeing the rapidity with which the seats were being filled by the
ladies, it occurred to me to pay one of the House attendants to bring me
a chair. By the time the man fetched it the aisles were so crowded with
extra seats and the throng of standing men that the only available space
left for a chair was in the statueless niche behind me. Though the width
of the Hall lay between it and the platform behind the Speaker's chair,
I could do no better, and the elevation of the position would, as I had
found, enable one to see, if not hear, over the heads of the noisy
assembly. The nearness to the entrance was in another way a decided
advantage, since it would enable me to address the senorita without
abandoning my seat to capture by the nearest beau of the many chairless
ladies.

From the moment the chair was handed me I was subjected to the wordless
attack of numerous fair ones, whose glances ranged all the way from soft
appeal to scornful reproach. And still the senorita failed to appear!

Mr. Jefferson, as negligently dressed as usual, had come in and taken
his seat beside his secretary; and the Marine Band, a resplendent
cluster of scarlet uniforms and polished brass instruments in the
gallery, had played the opening bars of "Hail Columbia," when a stir at
the entrance caused me to redouble my despairing vigil.

Greatly to my disappointment, I saw only the stately form of the
Catholic bishop. Ushered by an attendant, the priest made his way with
serene dignity through the laughing, chattering crowds whom he was to
address.

My heart sank into my boots. The service had begun, the hall was packed
almost to suffocation, the bishop had arrived, and still the senorita
failed to appear. To have kept waiting longer the nearest of the ladies
who had signalled to me for my chair would have been most ungracious. I
turned to speak to the lady's friend, hesitated, and turned back for a
last look at the entrance.

A rawboned Irishwoman was thrusting her way in through a group of men,
who seemed none too willing to give passage to her. The plainness of her
dress was enough of explanation for that, even had not the crowd been so
close. As she paused for breath, her big face red from exertion and the
quick anger of her race, it flashed upon me what a just mockery of the
beaux' gallantry it would be to give the woman my cherished seat. No
sooner had the thought entered my head than I caught her eye and
beckoned her to the chair.

The woman stared. I nodded and repeated my gesture. Promptly she pushed
a little to one side and turned half about. The movement brought to my
view the figure of another woman who had followed her in. My heart
sprang into my throat. Though the face of the second woman was downbent
and her dress all of black, it was enough for my enlightenment that the
covering of her graceful head was a Spanish mantilla.

At a word from the Irish woman she looked up and toward me, and I
thrilled at the level gaze of her glorious eyes. I bowed and pointed to
my chair. Without a sign of recognition she turned to look across the
hall. Unmasked to the men about her by the changed position of her
attendant, they were already making room for her beauty where the rude
strength of the woman had met with counter elbowing. Nine in ten of
those who surrounded her would gladly have given her their seats had
they been in possession of chair or bench. But mine was the only vacant
seat in the hall. The Irishwoman, who stood half a span taller even than
the senorita, had already perceived the fact. I saw her bend to whisper.

This time the senorita met my salute with a slight bow of recognition,
and advanced toward me, followed closely by her duenna. Had there been
no other ladies in the throng her passage would have been along an open
lane of admiring gallants. But not until she was within arm's-length did
I dare step down from my post of defence to meet her. We alike had the
other ladies to face and avoid. Half a dozen beaux were already before
me to proffer their assistance. I thrust aside the nearest and offered
my hand.

She placed her gloved fingers in my big palm and stepped up, without so
much as a word or a glance. For all that I found myself in an exultant
glow. Had I not had the forethought to procure the chair for her? and,
what was far more, had I not exercised sufficient courage to retain it
for her, despite the other ladies? The big Irishwoman gave me a glance
as kindly as it was shrewd, and took up her position beside me, her
coal-scuttle bonnet on a level with my curls.

Having done the senorita a service, it seemed to me fitting that I
should wait for her to speak before pressing her with further
attentions. Accordingly I stood with unturned head, gazing across toward
the Speaker's stand, and drinking in with appreciative ears the sonorous
bars of "Columbia."

With the last note of the national anthem ringing in my ears I became
aware of a far more musical sound,--the low-pitched voice of the
senorita: "There is space for one to stand beside the chair. Dr.
Robinson has my permission to step up and discover for me if Mrs. Merry
is present."

"Dr. Robinson accepts the invitation of Senorita Vallois with pleasure,"
I replied, hoping to bring a smile to the scarlet lips. They did not
bend, and I could see nothing but hauteur in her pale face and the
drooping lashes of her eyes. I stepped up into the narrow space beside
the chair, but it was not to stare about in search of Mrs. Merry.

"You do not look," she said with a trace of impatience.

"There is no need," I replied, my gaze downbent upon her cheek.

"No need?"

"The wife of the British Minister is not here."

"You have heard that she is ill?"

"No, senorita."

"Then how should you know that she is not here?"

"Because I have looked into the face of every lady present."

She smiled with a touch of scorn. "I had not thought the American
gentlemen so gallant!"

"I looked into the faces of all, senorita, searching for one."

To this she made no reply; and I, fearing that I had gone too far, stood
silent, under pretence of listening to the service. It was indeed a
pretence, for had I been in sober earnest I could have heard little
other than the band above the whispering and giggling all about the
room, the occasional loud talk in the lobbies, and the open laughter and
conversation of the young ladies and their lovers warming themselves at
the fireplaces. Throughout the service these gay young couples came and
went from their seats whenever the ladies felt chilled or took the whim,
the freedom of their movements seemingly limited only by the closeness
of the aisles.

When the time came for the bishop to preach there was a lull, owing to
his stately appearance and forceful oratory. The lull was brief. Once
more the young couples fell to whispering and tittering. A group of
Representatives and a Senator near us began a muttered disputation about
the question of naval appropriations. The senorita bent forward,
straining her ears to catch the words of the bishop. It was hopeless. In
the most favorable circumstances the Hall of Representatives has a bad
name for its wretched acoustic properties.

In the midst, at the stroke of noon, the attendant who had brought my
chair, came in with a great sack and, escorted by an officer of the
House, passed across the hall through the thick of the throng to the
letter-box on the far side. Having emptied the box, he returned with his
official escort in the same fashion, the bag on his shoulder bulging
with letters. The spectacle did not tend to lessen the lively spirits of
the assembly.

For the first time since I had taken my place beside her the senorita
looked up at me. Her face was still cold, but in the sombre depths of
her eyes glowed a fire of anger.

"Is it so you republican heretics meet the words of a most venerable
prelate?" she demanded.

"From what I hear, senorita, preachers of other churches receive, if
anything, still less consideration than this."

"It is a mockery of worship!"

"With the thoughtless, perhaps. I see many who listen. Another time it
would be advisable to come early and find a seat nearer the speaker."

"There will be no other time."

"Senorita!" I murmured, "you leave?"

"Within the week."

"So soon! You go by water. Would that I were a sailor in the West Indian
trade!"

She gave me a curious glance. "Why in the West Indian trade?"

"Ships carry passengers. Aboard even the greatest of ships the sailors
have glimpses of the passengers."

"Sometimes passengers stay below, in the cabin," she said coldly.

"That may well be in times of storm," I replied. "Then the sailor is
above, striving to save those who are in his care from shipwreck. But in
the warm waters of the Gulf the passengers show themselves on deck,
pleased to leave the narrow bounds of their staterooms."

"There are some who would rather stifle in their staterooms than be
stared at by the common herd."

"There are others, born in state, who would rather stand beneath the
open sky, side by side with a true man, than share the tinsel display of
kings," I persisted.

"Rousseau is somewhat out of style."

"No less is royalty."

"The French murdered their king, and God sent them a tyrant."

"A tyrant not for France alone. All Europe trembles at the word of the
Corsican."

"And your country, the glorious free Republic."

The bitter words forced past my lips: "My country writhes and bends
beneath the insults of the fighting bullies, and clutches eagerly at the
price of shame,--the carrying trades of the world."

She raised her eyes to mine, grave but no longer scornful. "At last I
have found an American!"

"There are others beyond the Alleghanies. We of the West are not sold to
the shipping trade."

"No; you do not take by commerce. You have ever been given to taking by
force."

"We have conquered the Indian with our rifles, and the wilderness with
our axes."

"Yet you turned to your East for it to buy you Louisiana, through a
conspiracy with that arch-liar the Corsican!"

"No conspiracy, senorita! It is well known that Napoleon bought
Louisiana from Spain for the sole purpose of extending his empire to the
New World. It was the fear of losing New Orleans to England that induced
him to sell the Territory to us--that alone."

"Yet he had given his pledge to my country not to sell!"

"Let your people look to it that he does not sell Spain itself."

"Ah, my poor country!" she murmured, and her head sank forward.

"I had gathered that your uncle was among those who seek to free Mexico
from Spanish rule," I said.

"Those whose misrule rests so heavily upon my people in New Spain have
little more regard for the welfare of my people in the mother country."

Again there was silence between us, this time until the close of the
bishop's sermon. As the prelate left the stand, the Irishwoman turned
about with an expectant look.

"Enough of this mockery!" said the senorita.

I stepped down at the word, and had the pleasure of receiving her hand
the second time. She made no objection to my escorting her from the hall
and to the outer door. In the portico she stopped for the Irishwoman to
come up on her other hand.

"You have my thanks, senor," she said.

I was not prepared to receive my dismissal so soon.

"With your kind permission, senorita, I will see you to your door," I
ventured, astonished at my own audacity.

Whatever her own feeling, she turned without so much as a lift of her
black eyebrows, and signed the woman to drop behind again. We descended
the marble steps together, and passed down a side street. She walked as
she spoke, flowingly, her step the perfect poetry of motion as her voice
was the poetry of sound. Her mere presence at my side should have been
enough to content me. But my thoughts returned to the dismal news of her
intended departure.

"You go within the week?" I questioned.

"Without regret," she replied.

I passed over the thrust. "You have been nowhere. It must have been
dull."

"Less so than may be thought. I have spent much of my time in the
company of Mrs. Merry."

"Lord have mercy upon us!" I mocked. "If you have been imbibing the
opinions of the Lady of the British Legation--!"

"I have heard some sharp truths regarding the ridiculousness of your
republican regime."

"And could tell of as many, from your own observation, regarding the
Court of St. James."

It was a chance shot, but it hit the mark.

"I had not thought you so quick," she said, with a note of sincerity
under the mockery.

"I am not quick, senorita," I replied. "It is no more than the
reflection of your own wit."

"That does not ring true."

"It is true that you raise me above my dull self."

"Have I said that I have found you dull?"

"I have never succeeded in acquiring the modish smartness of the
gallants and the wits."

"That, senor, is beyond the power of a man to acquire." I looked for
mockery in her eyes, and saw only gravity. The scarlet lips were curved
in scorn, but not of myself. "It is only those born as brainless magpies
who can chatter. You were right when you said that I could tell of
truths from my own observation. I left England with as little regret as
I shall--"

"Do not say it, senorita!" I protested.

"You Americans! You have the persistence of the British, with no small
share of French alertness!"

"We are a mixed people--" I began.

"Mongrel!" she thrust at me, with a flash of hauteur.

"Not so ill a name for a race," I replied. "History tells of a people
called Iberians. The Ph[oe]nicians and Carthagenians landed on their
shores. Then came the Romans; later, the barbaric hordes from the
North,--Goths, Vandals, Suevi; later still, the Moors."

The last was too much for her restraint. "Moors!--Moors! Mohammedan
slaves!" she exclaimed. "We drove them out--man, woman, and
child--before your land was so much as discovered."

"Yet not before they had done what little could be done toward
civilizing barbaric Europe, and not before their blood had mingled--"

"_Santisima Virgen!_" she cried, in a passion which was all the more
striking for the restraint that held it in leash--"I, a daughter of such
blood!--you say it?"

"I do not say it, senorita," I replied, with such steadiness as I could
command under the flashing anger of her glance.

"Then what?" she demanded.

"I spoke of your race in general, senorita. There are self-evident
facts. Even were the fact which you so abhor true as to yourself, would
your eyes be any the less wondrously glorious? Your dusky hair--"

She burst into a rippling laugh, more musical than the notes of any
instrument. "_Santa Maria!_" she murmured. "You miss few
opportunities--for an Anglo-American!"

"A man asks only for reasonable opportunities, senorita,--a fair field
and no favors."

"The last is easy to grant."

"You mean--?"

"No favors."

She had me hard. I rallied as best I could. "But a fair field--?"

"Can there be such?" she countered. "You are Anglo-American; I am
Spanish."

"Vallois has a French sound."

Her chin rose a trifle higher. "It is a name that crowns the most
glorious pages in the history of France."

I thought of St. Bartholomew, and smiled grimly. "I, too, can trace back
to one ancestor of French blood. He died by command of Charles de
Valois. He was a shoemaker and a Huguenot."

She looked at me with a level gaze. "It is evident you are one who does
not fear to face the truth. You have yourself named the barrier and the
gulf between us."

"Barriers have been leaped; gulfs spanned."

"None such as these!"

"Senorita, we each had four grandparents, they each had four. That is
sixteen in the fourth generation back. How many in ten generations? Who
can say he is of this blood or that?"

"I do not pretend to the skill to refute specious logic, and--here is
the gate. My thanks to you."

"Senorita!" I protested.

"_Adios_, senor! Open your eyes to the barrier and the gulf."

"I see them, and they shall not stop me from crossing!" Again I
encountered the inscrutable glance that opened to me the darkness in the
fathomless depths of her eyes. "I swear it!" I vowed.

Still gazing full at me, she replied: "It may be that in the Spring we
shall pass through New Orleans."

I would have protested--asked for a word more to add to this meagre
information. But she turned in at the gate, and the Irishwoman was at my
elbow.

"Till then, if not before, _au revoir_, senorita!" I called in parting.

She did not glance about or speak.




CHAPTER VI

THE WEB OF THE PLOTTER


Three days of waiting was the utmost I could force myself to endure. On
the afternoon of the fourth I called at the house on the side street.
The door was opened by the Irishwoman, who met me with a broad grin.

"Oi looked for ye sooner, sor!" was her greeting.

"Senorita Vallois--?"

"Flown, sor,--more's th' pity! Ye're a loikely lad, sor, if ye'll oxcuse
th' liberty."

"Gone?" I muttered. "Her uncle--?"

"Came an' packed her off, bag an' baggage, two days gone."

"Two days!--Where?"

"'Tis yersilf, sor, is to foind out th' same," she chuckled.

I held out a piece of silver. "Will that jog your memory, mistress?"

"Divil take ye!" she cried, and she struck the quarter dollar from my
hand. "Am Oi a black traitor to sell a fellay Christian to a heretic?"

After that there was nothing to do but turn on my heel and leave the
virago. By one false move I had lost her friendship beyond recall.

For weeks I sought to trace the senorita and her uncle. All I could
discover was that the don had come from Philadelphia in his private
coach, called at the British Legation, and carried away his niece by a
route unknown.

Left with no more than that doubtful mention of New Orleans, I plunged
back into the social swim of the Federal City; not to forget her,--that
I could not have done had I wished,--but to wear away the months of
waiting and to perfect myself in the social graces so far as lay within
my capacity.

At the same time I did not forget to press my application with Secretary
Dearborn and other members of the Government, who, I found, were all too
ready to forget me. It was a hopeless quest, and I was well assured of
the fact before midwinter. Yet it served its part as a time-killer; and
the season being too far advanced for the descent of the Ohio by boat,
it was far more agreeable as well as advantageous for me to while away
my enforced holiday in Washington than needlessly to punish myself by
the long and wearisome horseback journey to the Mississippi.

So I lingered on, dancing attendance on officials who frowned, and
dancing the minuet with ladies who smiled. Each served its purpose in
carrying me over what would otherwise have been a most tedious winter.

March came and dragged along more than the due number of weeks of foul
weather. Yet with the approach of the vernal equinox I began to overhaul
my buckskins. Being well able to imagine the state of the roads, I had
started a chest with the bulk of my wardrobe by wagon to Pittsburg ten
days in advance, and all my preparations had been made to follow after,
when the post from Philadelphia brought me a letter which caused me to
change my plans in a twinkling. I should rather have termed the missive
a note. It was without date, and ran thus:

     "If Dr. Robinson is interested in learning of a project
     contemplated by two parties whom he met at dinner,--to wit, a
     certain foreign gentleman and the writer,--he will, on his
     return West, come by way of Philadelphia, and call upon the
     writer.

     "A. B."

Much as this language smacked of intrigue, I had no hesitancy in
changing my route to comply with the note. It was not that I felt any
interest in the projects of Colonel Burr or his associates. The point
was that to my mind "foreign gentleman" spelled "senor," and I had met
but one senor at dinner in the company of Aaron Burr. If senor, why not
senorita? The rest follows as a matter of course.

My faithful nag had not gone unridden through the winter. A man does not
always give over the habit of a daily outing because of balls and routs
and tea-sippings. Yet the roads north might have been better--which is
not saying much,--and there are limits to the endurance of a beast,
though not to the miriness of a seaboard road in the spring rains. I did
not make the trip to Philadelphia in record time.

Upon my arrival I found that even the beast's master would be the
better for a night's rest. Directed to the Plow Tavern, I demanded food
and drink for man and horse, and having washed and supped, soon found
myself pressing the clean linen of my Quaker host.

Business justifies calls at early hours, and I did not breakfast late.
It was as well, perhaps, that I missed my way in the square-laid but
narrow Quaker streets, and did not find myself upon the doorstep of
Colonel Burr until midmorning. Even as it was, I had a wait of several
minutes in the drawing-room before the Colonel entered, wigless,
unshaven, and loosely attired in nightgown and slippers.

While waiting, a casual survey of the room had surprised me with its
evidences of a lavish establishment. Gossip had reported that the
Colonel was not meeting all his extensive indebtednesses when due.

He greeted me with bland cordiality, notwithstanding the inapt hour of
my call.

"Welcome, doctor, welcome!" he exclaimed. "Better late than never, eh?"

"You are kind," I replied. "I fancied that I had come too early."

He glanced at his dress with a shrug. "Wine and late hours carry through
many a successful conference. You will join me in a cup of coffee and a
roll?"

Though I had no wish for food, I assented, for I saw that he had not yet
breakfasted. We were soon seated in a snug little den of a room, sipping
as good coffee as I had ever tasted at any other than a creole table.

Few men whom I have met have greater command of their features than has
Colonel Burr. On the other hand, few are as over-sanguine. He must have
inferred that my speedy response to his note meant outright eagerness to
share in the projects at which he had hinted. Scarcely pausing for a few
civil inquiries as to mutual acquaintances in the Federal City, he
interrupted my answers in the midst.

"Let that wait, let it wait, doctor!" he exclaimed, with an ingratiating
smile. "There is something of greater moment to us both. I take it from
this personal response to my note that you are not uninterested in the
plans of Senor Vallois and myself."

The mention of the senor's name drew from me a sharp nod of assent. The
plans of Senor Vallois could not but concern his niece, and consequently
myself. The Colonel nodded back, and his smile deepened.

"You are aware," he began, "that I have contemplated the purchase of a
large tract of land beyond the Mississippi, within the Spanish boundary,
on a tributary of the Red River."

"The project was mentioned by you at the President's house," I replied.

"But the ulterior purpose of the scheme--"

"It is reported that you have planned for a colony."

"As a move necessary to the advancement of the real project," he
explained.

My look of interest was not assumed. For months past many hundreds of
persons, enemies no less than well-wishers of the astute Colonel, had
been guessing at the real object behind his rumored schemes.

He nodded shrewdly, and went on, almost in the words of Senator Adair:
"Have you considered, doctor, the fortune in store for whoever opens an
overland trade with Santa Fe?"

"Granted, sir. No less have I considered the improbability of obtaining
such trade concessions from the Spanish authorities. It is only too well
known that their policy is set upon jealous exclusion. Their desire for
contact with our Western borderers is as slight as their racial and
religious aversions are deep-seated and abiding."

"Say rather, their political aversion. Better still, say the political
aversion of the authorities alone. I have reason to believe that the
people of Mexico would welcome closer relations with us."

"It is not possible!" I protested.

"Have you never thought that the Spanish colonies may be as desirous of
achieving independence from foreign oppression as were our own?"

"There is the contemplated expedition of Miranda to Caracas to speak for
that," I assented.

"We have the outcry of our insolent friend the Marquis of Casa Yrujo to
testify as to the Spanish view of Miranda. The point is, if an
expedition to South America, why not one to Mexico?"

"A conquest?" I inquired--"an extension of the vast westward boundaries
of Louisiana Territory? It is true that war with Spain now seems
inevitable. There is no doubt that the Government would proceed to
hostilities, were it not that the French Minister intimates that the
Emperor will not permit the war."

He gave me a cunning look. "Ay! With a Napoleon behind him, General
Torreau has no difficulty in intimidating our meek philosopher of the
White House. Yet the Emperor is powerless. England's fleets guard the
high seas. The time is ripe to strike at Spain. We shall precipitate the
war, and to us shall fall the prize! Let our object remain unnamed.
Enough that Senor Vallois speaks for certain fellow haciendados of
wealth and influence living in the northern part of New Spain, that
portion of the country above the territory of the viceroyalty and under
the government of General Salcedo."

"Whom they term the Governor-General of the Internal Provinces?"

The Colonel nodded. "These friends of Senor Vallois are far from content
with present conditions. They would gladly throw off the yoke of Spain
if the occasion presented itself. My plan is to present the occasion by
means of an army of invasion, to be allied with the revolutionary party.
There are thousands of adventurous riflemen west of the Alleghanies not
unready to follow an able leader to the land of the Montezumas."

"I have lived on the frontier too long, sir, to doubt that the tide of
our westward emigration will roll on until it breaks on the vast desert
of the Western plains."

"I care not for the tide, sir! We shall set in motion a wave that will
roll across the desert into the golden paradise of El Dorado!"

"And you would tell me a man of Senor Vallois's intelligence invites the
entrance of that wave?"

Again the Colonel gave me a knowing smile. "It will be for the Mexicans
to care for their own interests when the time comes. Men do not traverse
deserts and destroy governments without thought of reward. My fiery
friend General Jackson of Tennessee is champing with eagerness to share
in the conquest of the Spaniard. Would he be so eager were it explained
to him that the object of the invasion went no further than the freeing
of the people of that remote land? But there will be glory and
recompense for all, and to spare. I have pledged Senor Vallois that he
and his friends shall gain a free government, and with it security for
their estates. It is his own concern if he and they misconstrue the
statement too much in their own favor. On the other hand, Jackson is a
man far hungrier for glory than for gold. He will lead our victorious
army south into the viceroyalty, to capture the city of Mexico, while we
are shaping the new Government for the whole."

The magnitude of the scheme struck me dumb. The Colonel noted the fact
with satisfaction. He tapped the table significantly. "That Government,
doctor, is already in process of formation. As originator and leader of
the project, I claim the supreme office. Certain other of the higher
offices are allotted. But you, sir, are a man of scientific attainments
and proven courage, and, what is no less important in a royal court, you
are a gentleman."

"Royal court?" I muttered, wondering what more might follow.

"The Spanish-American is not qualified to enjoy a republican form of
government. Upon this Senor Vallois and myself are clearly agreed. The
plan is a constitutional monarchy or empire, with a restricted
franchise, the voters to be confined to the ranks of the wealthy and the
intellectual."

"In neither of which classes will be found the bulk of your invading
army. I foresee a revolution to cap your conquest," was my comment.

"Men can be managed," he replied. "There will not be lacking the spoils
of office and the plunder of the enemy to lull their discontent. With
all their leaders bound to us by self-interest, it will not be difficult
to hold the mass in check. Senor Vallois guarantees a stout auxiliary
force of native militia."

"With whom our rough frontiersmen will make short work, in sport, if not
in deadly earnest."

"Perhaps,--if brought in contact while not under the fire of the common
enemy. Pray do not imagine me so dull, sir. The point has been foreseen,
and has been discussed with men of military training. The army of
invasion will remain the army of invasion. West of Nuevo Mexico is the
remote Pacific province of the Californias; south of the city of
Mexico--"

"You think to conquer an empire!" I cried, overwhelmed.

"Why not?" he returned, with an assurance which for the time swept me
off my feet in the current of his flashing dreams.

But this giddiness was not alone due to his bare statement. Behind the
daring words I had seen what to me was the lure of lures. I had been
offered in substance, if not in words, an office of dignity in the court
of this future royal personage, among whose lieutenants was numbered the
kinsman of Senorita Vallois.

What wonder if for the moment I forgot the worth of republican
citizenship in the glittering dream of titled office? What wonder if in
the intoxication of the moment I saw the barrier flung down between
myself and her, and thought to barter my birthright as an American for a
vassal estate which should bring me within reach of her?

"An empire!" I repeated. "The spoils to the victor--and to his
followers. At what, sir, do you appraise my worth?"

His answer was ready to glibness: "The title of marquis, an estate to
support the dignity, and a seat in my privy council, or such other
office as your merits may indicate during the consummation of our
projects."

"You have made sure of Senor Vallois?" I demanded.

"He is with us hand and glove. I have planned to cross the Alleghanies
about midsummer. Senor Vallois has gone before, to negotiate with
certain persons at St. Louis and New Orleans, whom otherwise I might
find difficult of approach."

"He has gone west?" I repeated, unable to credit my ears.

"At my request. It was required that he should go by way of New Orleans,
in any event, and the coastwise voyage is far from pleasant at this
season. Hatteras has an evil name in equinoctial weather. Also there is
danger of Spanish pirates off Cuba and in the Gulf. It is hard to find
passage in other than an American ship, and a cannon-ball or musket shot
fired by a Spanish pirate at a Yankee hull would not turn aside to avoid
the Spanish don who chanced to be aboard that selfsame Yankee."

Masking my eagerness with a smile at the conceit he pictured, I remarked
in as casual a tone as I could command: "The don, then, is well on his
way to St. Louis?"

"Not he!" snapped the Colonel. "It is now only seven--no, eight days
since he started. Knowing the condition of the roads, I advised that he
should take to the saddle, and leave his charming niece to continue her
visit with my daughter Theodosia, who, as doubtless you have heard, is
the wife of Senator Allston of South Carolina. I may mention in
confidence that my son-in-law is one of the foremost of all those
interested in our grand project. When I begin my second Western tour,
both he and my beloved Theodosia and my little grandson will accompany
me."

"From all that I have heard, sir, Mrs. Allston has only to make an
acquaintance to find a friend," I said.

His fond ear was quick to catch the sincerity of my tone, and a look of
the most profound and unselfish love ennobled his crafty face. But my
own love cried out for an ending of the bitter-sweet suspense.

"So Senor Vallois was so ill advised as to take with him his niece?--or
was she not his daughter?" I commented.

"His niece. Did you not meet her at the table of our Jacobin
philosopher? To be sure you did! I have not so soon forgotten that
gallant exploit with the fence rails!... Thanks to the obstinacy of her
uncle, she will be muddying that dainty arched foot in the wayside bog
for days to come. There will be few Dr. Robinsons between here and
Pittsburg to pry out the carriage of the bemired Dulcinea."

"Ah, well," I observed, "doubtless the senor will arrive in time enough
to take advantage of the spring fresh. What he loses on the road he will
regain by the added swiftness of the Ohio's current."

"True--true."

"I had myself thought to take advantage of the early floods. My
interests impel me to return to Louisiana as speedily as possible."

The Colonel gave me another of his shrewd looks. "You will not take it
amiss, doctor," he said, "if I repeat current gossip that the object of
your Winter in the Federal City was not attained." I nodded, without
show of offence, and he added quickly, "As well, as well, my dear sir!
It has brought you better fortune, and your wish atop! You shall have a
letter from me to General Wilkinson."

The suddenness of this took me unawares, but he had turned at the words
to summon the servant, and did not observe my confusion. Calling for
pen, ink, and paper, he turned again to me with outstretched hand.

"Your hand to it, doctor!" he cried. "You are with us?--you cast in your
fortune with the future Empire of the West?"

"A word, sir," I protested. "The heritage left me by my father was scant
as to property, but I have found it rich in wisdom. It included this old
adage, 'Look before you leap.'"

"Good! good, sir! Most excellent advice! Yet have I not shown you the
prospect?"

"You have, sir, and not without avail. It is an alluring prospect. I
confess myself tempted. Yet--I have seen what the French term the
mirage. I should prefer to hold my decision until I have dipped my cup
in the lake and found it filled."

"Eh! eh!" he chuckled. "I'll wager there's Scotch blood in your
veins--Scotch blood!"

"At the least, I would look closer at the water," I insisted.

"You shall, sir--my word for it!" he responded, with an assurance which
shook my last doubt. "You shall have the letter to Wilkinson. When it
has brought you your wish, then, and not until then, need you consider
your pledge binding."

"Sir," I said, tempted beyond my strength, "I accept the terms."

"Your hand to it!" he cried, and his soft white fingers closed about
mine with a strength of grip that astonished me. "To you, sir, shall be
entrusted the double mission of opening communication across the Western
boundaries with our Mexican allies, and of negotiating with the present
Spanish authorities for the Santa Fe trade. I need hardly mention to a
man of your intelligence that such projects as we contemplate are not
carried to completion without funds. To me falls the task of collecting
the sinews of war."

"To me the leadership of the scouts!" I cried. "I am doubly hot to take
the road. Dawn shall see me in the saddle!"

"The fire of youth!" he exclaimed, again clasping my hand. "Go, make
your preparations. You will ride none the less swiftly that you carry a
packet of letters for me."

"Willingly!"

"You think to go south to New Orleans?" I bowed. "Then a letter as well
to Daniel Clark."

"I am known to him."

"True; but I have word to send him--no less to Wilkinson--regarding the
death of Pitt."

"It is months since that event," I remarked. "The Prime Minister died in
January."

"The post to Louisiana is uncertain. Wilkinson at least may not have
heard, and I have comments to make. You will deliver the letters for
me?"

"I should be pleased to do so, sir. It is a small enough favor to
undertake, even for a chance acquaintance."

"But a favor that shall be remembered, doctor. Your lodging?"

"The Plow Inn."

"The packet shall be in your hands by evening," he replied.

I rose at the words, and he showed me to the door, with repeated
assurances of confidence and esteem.




CHAPTER VII

SHIP AND CREW


The promised packet of letters was delivered to me at the Plow shortly
after dark, by the man who had served coffee at the Colonel's. It was
accompanied by a note in which Mr. Burr pleaded pressing business as an
excuse for not delivering the packet in person. To this he had added a
postscript empowering me to break the seal of the packet upon my arrival
at St. Louis.

It struck me as most odd that the packet should have been sealed at all.
But upon reflection, I concluded that this was a very proper precaution
against a chance inspection of the contents by prying busy-bodies who
should happen to handle the packet. The letters might well contain
statements open to misconstruction by the Colonel's numerous and
powerful enemies, or details of plans, publicity of which, owing to the
necessity of secrecy, might disconcert the progress of the great
project. The instruction to me to open the packet upon my arrival
prevented any questioning of the Colonel's confidence in myself.

Thanks to a large hostler-fee, my horse came from the stable after his
day of rest as fresh as when we left Washington, and hardened by the
trip. He had need for all the endurance within his nature. Before dawn
his hoofs were clattering across the great new bridge over the
Schuylkill.

In the dense night of the bridge's enclosed roof and sides, it was like
riding through a hall of vast length, with no guidance other than the
faint starlight at the far end. The thought struck me that this was apt
symbol of my love-quest. The darkness was as the night of my lady's
fathomless eyes, through which in the uncertain distance I could no more
than fancy a dim starlight of hope.

Musing on the conceit, I continued the allegory as we left the bridge
and splattered away on the old colonial road to the Monongahela, with
the fancy that in spirit, as in body, I had passed from the shut-in
blackness out into the openness of space, and that before me was promise
of fair dawn.

The day's dawn came as promised, bringing me still greater elevation of
spirit. And within the mile a mischievous farmer's brat by the wayside
tumbled me from heaven to muddy earth by howling in a voice of lively
concern that my horse had lost his tail. So near does the ridiculous
skirt the sublime! I had begun my journey on the Day of All Fools.

Perish superstition! Who but the ignorant believes in signs and omens?
And if mine was in truth a wild-goose chase, the sooner I reached the
end of my running the better. I neither would nor could have checked
myself had the thought come to me to turn back.

A journey tedious enough in the best of seasons is not improved by April
rains and boggy roads. On the other hand, I had that drawing me Westward
which would have spurred the tortoise into striving for the hare's leap.
It is sufficient evidence of my haste to state that, for all the
condition of the roads, I made in fifteen days the trip which is
considered well covered if ridden in nineteen.

Let me hasten to add that this was not done on one nag. Even had not my
love of man's second friend served to prevent so brutal an attempt,
failure would have been inevitable. With the best of roads, not a horse
in the Republic could have carried through a man of my weight in the
time. The attempt was not necessary. Thanks to a kindly acquaintance
here and there along my route and to a sufficiency of silver in my
saddlebags, I managed to obtain a fresh mount on an average of twice in
every three days. With such relays, I was able to ride post-haste, yet
leave behind me each horse, in turn, none the worse for his part in the
race.

Up hill and down dale, pound, splatter, and chug, I pushed my mounts to
their best pace, along the old Philadelphia road. In other circumstances
and under clearer skies I might have paused now and again to enjoy the
pleasant aspect of the Alleghany scenery,--its winding rivers and
brooks, its romantic heights and budding woods. But from the first my
thoughts were ever flying ahead to the Monongahela, and the sole
interest I turned to my surroundings was centred upon such urgent
matters as food, lodging, and fresh mounts.

At the end of the journey I found myself in clear memory of but three
incidents,--a tavern brawl with a dozen or more carousing young farmers,
who chose to consider themselves insulted by my refusal to take more
than one glass of their raw whiskey; the swimming of the Susquehanna
River, because of a disablement of the ferry; and a brush with a trio of
highwaymen at nightfall in the thick of a dense wood. The rascals did
not catch me with damp priming. When they sprang out at me, I knocked
over the foremost, as he reached for the bridle, with a thrust of my
rifle muzzle, and swung the barrel around in time to shatter the
shoulder of the second fellow with a shot fired from the hip. The third
would have done for me had not his priming flashed in the pan. He turned
and leaped back into the thicket, while I was quite content to clap
spurs to my horse and gallop on up the road.

But even this last adventure failed to hold a place in my thoughts when
at last, near mid-afternoon of the fifteenth day, I came in view of
Elizabethtown on the Monongahela. Here it was I had reason to hope that
I might overtake Senor Vallois and his party. With roads so difficult,
it was more to be expected that he would take boat from this lively
little shipping point than rag on through the mire to Pittsburg.

Cheered by the thought, I urged my horse into a jog trot, which,
however, soon fell back into a walk as the weary beast floundered
through the deeper mire of the town's main street. I rode as directly as
possible toward the leading tavern. Senor Vallois was not the man to lie
at any other than the best of inns when choice offered.

With quick-beating heart I made out the sign of the tavern I sought, and
again attempted to urge my horse into a jog. He was slow to respond
either to word or spur, and I suddenly gave over the effort at sight of
a tall and dignified figure which stepped from the inn door and swung
easily upon the horse which a half-grown lad had been holding in wait.

The first glance had told me what I most wished to know. My chase had
not been fruitless. The Spanish cloak and hat and high riding boots of
the don were unmistakable, even had I not recognized the Spanish dignity
of his bearing. Certain of his identity, I would have preferred to
postpone a meeting until I had found opportunity to bathe and to change
to the one shift of linen and clothes which I carried behind the cantle
of my saddle. Yet I made no attempt to avoid him when he wheeled his
horse about and rode directly toward me.

Had it not been for our first meeting in the yellow clay of Washington's
famous avenue, I doubt if the don were unmistakable, even had I not
recognized buckskins. With that memory in mind, it is not unlikely that
my mud-smirched condition only served to add to the quickness of his
perception. We were almost passing, when he raised his eyes, which had
been staring down into the miry road in frowning abstraction. His glance
swept over me and rested on my face. A moment later he had drawn rein
and was bowing to me.

"_Por Dios!_ It is our gallant _caballero_ of the mire!--_Buenos dias_,
Dr. Robinson!"

"To you the same, Senor Vallois!" I returned.

"It is a strange chance which brings us to a meeting in this wilderness
bog," he remarked, with what I thought was a shade of suspicion in his
proud black eyes.

There was every reason for me to seek at once to place myself on the
footing with him that I desired. Meeting his glance with a careless nod,
I answered readily: "It is a pleasant chance which brings us together
here, but not a strange one. Little travel comes from Philadelphia to
the Ohio other than on the road we both have such cause to remember."

"From Philadelphia?" he questioned.

"I carry despatches from Colonel Burr."

"You!" he cried, thrown out of his aristocratic reserve. But in the same
breath he was bowing his apologies. "Your pardon, senor! I was not aware
that you and Colonel Burr--"

"Nor he, senor, until a few days ago," I hastened to explain. "Senator
Adair of Kentucky was formerly my father's friend and camp-mate. He
advised me to see Colonel Burr. When I started upon my return West, I
came by way of Philadelphia. It did not take me long to come to an
agreement with--" I lowered my voice and leaned nearer the don--"the
man who professes an intention to strike off the fetters of a land dear
to Senor Vallois."

"_Poder de Dios!_" cried the don, reaching his hand to me with a fiery
impetuosity of which I had believed him incapable--"_Santisima Virgen!_
You are one of us! You have cast in your lot with the new league of
freedom!"

It angered me that I must qualify. "Hold, senor! I did not say that. I
have not gone so far--as yet."

"As yet?" he demanded.

"Your pardon, senor, but many such projects are schemed, and in the end
prove to be--'castles in Spain.'"

He smiled gravely and without offence. "Senor, I give you my word that I
and my friends are prepared to build the Western wall of the castle."

"Your word, senor, is sufficient. But there remains the Eastern wall,
and I am doubtful of the builders. I did not ask for Colonel Burr's
word. I preferred something more substantial. He has promised that I
shall receive such proof upon my arrival at St. Louis."

"Then you, too, go to the--to St. Louis?"

"To the General," I responded, surmising that it was General Wilkinson
whom he had hesitated to name.

"You spoke of despatches."

"Letters from the Colonel to parties we both seek, in St. Louis and New
Orleans."

"Colonel Burr entrusted me with numerous despatches."

"He mentioned the day of my visit with him in Philadelphia as the eighth
after your departure. That week may have seen developments or changes
which required fresh despatches."

"_Poder de Dios!_" he exclaimed. "You left Philadelphia eight days
later--and are here!"

"At your service, senor."

"_Santisima Virgen!_ And I had four horses to my carriage!"

"I had nine horses beneath my saddle, in succession."

"_Virgen!_ What a _caballero_!"

"When a man is in haste to see his journey's end, senor, he does not
loll about taverns on the way. You came in yesterday?" He bowed. "Then
you may be able to tell me what are the chances of obtaining quick
passage down the river."

He looked across toward the shipyards with a frown.

"I am now on my way to inquire, senor," he answered. "Against the better
counsel of Colonel Burr, I was so ill advised as to bring a seaman from
the seaboard to have charge of the water journey."

"A salt-water sailor on an Ohio flat!" I exclaimed.

"The senor forgets that I am a stranger to his forest wilderness."

"Your pardon, Senor Vallois!--Permit me to ride with you. It may be I
can assist you."

"_Na-da-a!_" he protested. "I cannot permit it. You have ridden for
fifteen days at more than post speed. You must first refresh yourself."

"The senor forgets that I am no less eager than himself to arrange for
the river passage. Rest assured I am good for another day in the saddle,
if need be, at your service, senor."

As I wheeled around, and we started for the riverside, he looked me up
and down with a wondering glance.

"_Por Dios!_" he muttered. "I had thought none could ride as ride our
_vaqueros_. You are a man of iron."

"I am the son of my father," I replied. "How other than hard could be
the sons of the men who wrested this Western land from the savages,--who
have driven the Cherokees, Creeks, and Choctaws south of Tennessee, and
pressed back the Northwest Indians to their present fastnesses about the
Great Lakes?"

"It is true," he said. "I have been told no little of that most cruel
and ferocious warfare waged by your savage enemies. I myself know the
fearsomeness of the raids of our equally ferocious Apaches and Yaquis.
Therefore I do not wonder that the men and the sons of the men who met
their painted enemies in this gloomy wilderness should have become not
only hard, but rude and harsh in their manners."

"Given that and the prevailing craze for raw whiskey, and we have--what
we have. Yet they are the men whose fathers met the Indian on his own
ground; who themselves have met the ravaging war parties, and who will
doubtless again meet them,--though I trust not again on the banks of the
Ohio."

"May the Virgin grant that your trust is well founded!" returned the
senor, with deep earnestness. "Yet the British soldiers still hold your
lake forts, and it is rumored that the British agents are ever at work
conspiring with the Northern tribes against the interests of your
people. Let me predict that unless Britain is humbled by the great
Emperor, she will make excuse of your many differences to crush your
Republic and regain these lost colonies."

"Let her try!" I cried. "Let her turn loose her savage allies upon us,
and we will hurl them back into the lakes! We will cross over and drive
redcoats and redskins alike down the St. Lawrence into the sea! Even the
abject people of the seaboard, who now lick the foot that spurns them,
will remember their fathers of the Revolution, and strike the enemy as
Paul Jones and his fellows struck them,--on the sea."

The senor met my enthused glance with unmoved gravity. "I have heard
mention of what is called President Jefferson's mosquito fleet."

Our arrival at the shipyards gave me welcome excuse to change the
subject. I pointed to the scores of river craft, afloat in the stream or
in course of construction. "Had you in mind, senor, to take a bateau or
a flat?"

"Bateau?--flat?" he repeated. "Your pardon, doctor, but the terms--?"

"A bateau is a boat of flat bottom but with keel. A flat is a great scow
without keel, and often provided with deal cabins."

"I had been told how to proceed, but left all to that rascal of a
seaman. Immediately upon our arrival, he told me, with many foul oaths,
that he intended to make no ventures on fresh water, and to show his
contempt for the saltless fluid, has sat ever since in the taproom of
the inn, guzzling whiskey."

"You are better off without the fellow," I said. "There are scores of
men to be hired here who are well used to river travel. Is it your
intention to hire passage, or to purchase your own boat?"

"Privacy is desirable. I have disposed of my coach and horses with less
loss than I had feared. If boats are not too high in price--"

"Rest easy as to that, senor. Boats are one of the cheapest products of
the shipping towns. The question first to decide is whether you prefer a
keelboat or a flat."

"Senor, I must rely upon your good advice," he replied.

I pointed at the swollen, turbid current of the Monongahela, swirling
high along its banks. "As you see, the river is in full flood. It is
what the rivermen term the Spring fresh. The Ohio now runs no less
swiftly, at times fully eight miles an hour. I should advise you to
choose a flat, because it will travel little less speedily than a
bateau, and with its house, will prove a far more comfortable craft for
so long a voyage."

"Comfort is an important consideration, doctor. With me travels my
niece, whom you may remember."

I kept such command of my features as I could. "I have a clear memory of
Senorita Vallois. It is unfortunate."

"Unfortunate!" he exclaimed, with a lift of his black brows.

"That you have no servant skilled in handling a river boat."

"Ah--that!"

"A single man could manage your flat, provided you were willing to lend
a hand on occasion at steer-oar or pole--a few minutes, it might be,
once or twice a day. There are, as I have said, numbers of skilled
rivermen to be hired. But--" I paused as if to consider--"No. I could
bring you more than one for whose faithfulness I could vouch, but none
who is not foul-mouthed and--to a foreigner--insolent."

Shifting my gaze to the nearest flat, I waited in eager suspense. He
answered with a question: "Do I understand you to say that with my help
one man could guide so clumsy a craft?" I nodded, with assumed
carelessness. "And you are yourself skilled as a riverman, senor?" Again
I nodded. I could not trust myself to speak. He continued with polite
hesitancy: "Would you, then, think it odd, Dr. Robinson, if I requested
you to make the river journey with me?"

"Senor!" I cried, "it would give me great pleasure!"

"_Carambo!_" he muttered, at sight of my glowing face.

A moment's hesitancy would have lost me all the vantage I had gained. I
held my left hand level before me, and swept off the upturned palm with
my right. There are few of the Indian signs which do not pass current
from the lakes of the North and the swamps of the South to the most
remote of the tribes in the Far West. I was right in my surmise that
they were known even across the Spanish borders.

The senor bowed in quick apology: "A thousand pardons, Senor Robinson!"

"A man does not ride post-haste without expense," I said, with a
seriousness which was not all feigned.

"A thousand pardons!" he repeated. "My purse is at your disposal, Senor
Robinson. I do not speak in empty compliment. Such funds as you may
require--"

"_Muchas gracias!_" I broke in. "I have enough silver left to jingle in
my pocket. My thought was that it would be more agreeable to work my
passage with an acquaintance than with strangers. At this season it is
unusual for persons of culture to undertake the river trip. The voyage
is becoming quite the fashion among young gentlemen of means and
enterprise, but they seldom venture over the mountains before settled
weather, and the rivermen, as I have remarked, are not always the best
of company."

"Senor, no more! We share this voyage as fellow-travellers--my boat and
your skill. Is it not so?"

"Senor, my thanks!" I replied. "Yet first, there is the question of
Senorita Vallois's pleasure. It is a long voyage. I would not thrust
myself upon your intimacy against the lady's inclinations."

"My niece will be no less pleased than myself to travel in company with
a gentleman of your acquaintance. I will answer for that. My niece has
lived for three years in England. While we travel in Anglo-America, we
are agreed to comply with such customs of the country as do not differ
too widely from our own."

I bowed low to hide my extreme satisfaction. It was the rarest of good
fortune to have penetrated the reserve with which a Spanish gentleman
surrounds the ladies of his family. But it was not my part to dwell upon
the fact. I hastened to point out a flatboat which had caught my eye
when we first rode down to the bank.

"What is your opinion of that craft?" I asked.

"So large a boat--for two men? _Santa Maria!_"

"Hardly forty feet over all," I replied. "Let us go aboard."

He swung to the ground as quickly as myself, and we hitched our horses
to the nearest stump. As the flat was moored alongside the rough wharf,
we had only to step aboard. The height of the water brought the craft
almost on a level with the wharf.

A glance or two showed me that the boat was already fitted out with
steer-oar, sweeps and poles, a kedge with ample line, and a light skiff,
snugly stowed in the ten-foot space of open prow. Having next made sure
that she was well calked and dry, I led the senor through the house. It
was divided into three apartments or rooms, of which the one nearest the
stern was some five feet the longest.

"Here," I said, pointing to the rude but well-built fireplace, "is the
kitchen, salon, and dining-room of our floating inn."

We passed on through the middle and forward rooms. Like the kitchen,
both were limited to a width of seven feet by the need of a runway
without, along each side of the boat. But Senor Vallois looked about
approvingly.

"We could share this cabin," he said, glancing about the forward room.

"My thanks, senor, but I can make shift to sleep on deck," I replied.

"There will be rain--there is always rain in this northern country of
yours. No. You will do me the favor of sharing this cabin with me. There
are two berths, as you see."

I looked gravely at the rude bunks built, one above the other, on the
left wall, and bowed my acceptance of the offer.

"It is well," he continued. "My niece and her woman will share the
middle room. There remains only the question of purchase."

"Leave the bargaining to me," I said quickly, at sight of the
shrewd-faced Yankee who came down the wharf as we stepped out into the
open prow.

"The affair is entirely in your hands, doctor," assented the senor.

The Yankee stepped aboard with an air of brisk business.

"I cal'clate ye want a boat," he began. "Let ye have this 'un dirt
cheap."

"How much?" I demanded.

"One seventy-five."

"Lumber cordelled by keelboat from New Orleans?" I rallied him in
smiling irony.

He looked me up and down with a speculative eye.

"We-ell, stranger, I might knock off ten dollars."

"You mean fifty."

Again he surveyed me; then appraised the rich broadcloth of my
companion.

"Be ye buyin' fer him?" he queried.

"We make the trip together. I can go as high as a hundred and
twenty-five. We could do better at Pittsburg, but are willing to give
you the bargain, to save our boots."

He looked again from my mud-smeared buckskins to the senor's fine
apparel, and smiled sourly. "Ye'll git no such boat at the price, here
or at Pittsburg, if ye wait till the next freeze. One fifty is my best
offer. Take it or leave it."

"Skiff, kedge, sweeps, poles, and steer-oar included," I stipulated.

He assented, with well-feigned reluctance: "As she stands--lock, stock,
and barrel."

I handed him a five-bit piece. "Taken! Yet I'd have had you down fifteen
more if we were not in haste."

"I'd ha' eased your high-nosed don of a round two hundred, my lad, had
he done his own dickering," muttered he, as, at a word from me, the
senor drew out a bulging purse and counted into my palm the hundred and
fifty dollars in American gold.




CHAPTER VIII

THE HOSPITABLE BLENNERHASSETS


While our sour-faced boat-dealer made out his bill of sale, I wrote down
a list of provisions and furnishings for the boat. Upon reading this to
the senor, he suggested the addition of some articles which I would have
regarded as needless luxuries. Leaving these to his own selection, I
jogged to the store of a gruff old German ship-chandler, one of the
Hessians against whom my father had fought at Monmouth and Trenton, and
whose wife, on my last trip, I had been so fortunate as to cure of a
quinsy.

The good Frau came in as I was giving my list into the charge of her
husband, and would not take a refusal to her offer of hospitality.
Horse, list, and all were taken from me before I could defend myself,
and I am not sure but what the Frau would herself have put me into the
tub she made ready in the bedroom had I not begged for a dish of her
sauerkraut and corned beef.

Cleansed and filled, I was given no peace until she had me safe between
clean, dry sheets in their canopied fourposter. Having then been given
sufficient respite to write a note of explanation to the senor, I rolled
over and sank into that profound slumber of which I had so great need.

I awoke to find the sun up a good two hours and the hospitable couple
beaming upon me as brightly as the sunrays which shone in through the
diamond panes of the latticed window. The Frau held up my buckskins, all
cleansed and dried and softened; the man showed my list, with every item
checked and double checked, and a receipt from the party to whom I had
agreed to deliver my last mount.

Between them I soon learned that the flatboat was well stocked for the
voyage, and that the senor had sent word he was about to go aboard with
his party. This last would have forced me to rise and accept the good
wife's intended assistance with my dressing, had she not feared that I
should rush off before she could serve my breakfast. I gulped my coffee
while she tied on my moccasins. There was no question of other garments
than my buckskins, since saddle and all had been stored aboard the flat.
When I at last made my escape, it was with a hot sausage in either hand.
These German delicacies followed the rye bread and coffee which had gone
before, while I was riding to the wharf in my host's rattling ox-cart.

Greatly to my relief, despite the plodding pace of our beasts, we were
first to reach the boat. I had time to overhaul the craft and say
farewell to my good German friend. As he drove off, gruff-voiced but
beaming, the well-remembered cherry-wood carriage came churning through
the mire. The senor had retained the right to use it for this last
service.

I was at the door, with my hand on the knob, as the driver swung
around. The senor stepped out, with a sonorous, "_Buenos dias_, doctor!"
For a fraction of a moment he seemed about to turn. Then he stepped
aside, and left my way clear.

My lady drew out an arm from the depths of her great ermine muff. Her
plump, bare little hand lay in my brown fingers like a snowy jasmine
bloom. There was mockery in the depths of her eyes, but the scarlet lips
arched in a not unkindly smile.

"_Buenos dias_, senor!" she greeted me.

"It is truly a good day which brings me sight again of Senorita
Vallois," I replied. "May this clear sky prove true augury of the voyage
we are to share!"

"May it prove true augury of clear sunshine to follow! These weeping
skies of England and your Republic! I long for a week of dry weather."
She shivered in her single-sleeved French cloak, whose white floss net
and tassels added little to the warmth of her gauzy muslins. As for her
head, even her light mantilla would have been more suitable to the
weather than the jaunty cap of velvet and tigerskin.

"You are cold!" I said. "There is a fire aboard our craft."

I drew her hand beneath my arm and started to lead her down the wharf as
a swarthy, hard-featured woman stepped from the carriage. The senorita
spoke a few words in Spanish, and the woman turned to help the driver
lift down the chests and boxes from behind, under the direction of Senor
Vallois.

Handing the senorita down into the boat's stern, I led her into the
living-room, or kitchen, and laid more fagots upon the fire which I had
kindled. In another moment I had her seated before the blaze, with a
blanket about her graceful shoulders. As I knelt to place a stool for
her little feet, she gazed down with the velvety eyes which had looked
out upon me from the coach window in Washington.

"_Maria purisima!_" she murmured. "There are tales of gallant knights--"

"Who served and adored their ladies!" I added.

She glanced about at her uncle, who was entering through the middle
room.

"_Madre de los Dolores!_" she called. "These physicians! Pray, reassure
him, my uncle. He is convinced I shall suffer a chill."

"Not after the precautions I have taken," I rejoined with professional
gravity as I rose. "The wonder is that Senorita Vallois has so long
survived the sudden changes of our seaboard climate. I know little of
temperatures abroad, but on this side of the Atlantic these thin Empire
gowns are sheer murder."

"Granted," replied the senor. "Yet as a physician you have doubtless
long since learned the futility of arguing the cut or material of a gown
with a woman."

"Only too well, senor! Fortunately every day will now carry us both
nearer a milder climate and nearer the Summer. Your chests are all
aboard?"

"All. And yours, senor?"

"Mine will be waiting on the wharf at Pittsburg. We will put in for it
as we drift past."

"It is well," he replied. I moved toward the outer door. "A moment, if
you please, doctor. We voyage together many leagues. Among my friends I
am addressed as Don Pedro."

"And I as Alisanda," added the senorita gayly. Her uncle raised his
brows, but said nothing. She called toward the inner door,
"Chita!--Chita!"

The woman appeared, and at a sign from her mistress, crossed toward me.

"Dr. Robinson, you have not before met my faithful Chita, because she
was ill and had to be left in Philadelphia when we went to Washington.
Chita, this is he of whom I spoke."

The woman courtesied with a grace which belied her stout figure, her
beady eyes riveted upon my face. When she straightened I ventured to
surmise from the half smile which hovered about her hard mouth that if
she was not already well-disposed toward me, she was at least not an
enemy.

"It is well," said Don Pedro.

"All well--and ready to cast off," I added. "If the senorita--"

"Alisanda!" she corrected, with a flashing glance.

"If--Alisanda is quite warm, she may wish to witness the event."

"I will join you immediately," she responded.

With that I led Don Pedro out to the steer-oar and showed him how to
hold it to aid in bringing us about. As our craft lay in a slow eddy, I
had no difficulty in casting off. The townfolk and shipyard workers were
far too busy with the rush of the Spring shipping to give heed to so
common an event as the departure of a flat. But it was enough to call
out all my skill and strength that I thrust off under the eyes of
Alisanda.

A side shove from the prow, and a rear thrust from the inner corner of
the stern as the prow swung out, cleared us from the wharf and sent us
gliding out aslant the eddy. The river was in such full flood that the
bottom, even alongside the wharf, was beyond poling depth. But I called
Don Pedro to aid me with the sweeps, and a few long strokes carried us
out into the swirling current of midstream.

Our voyage had begun. We were afloat in the grasp of the river, and for
the time need only to fold our arms and gaze at the changing vistas of
forest-clad hills on either bank, past which the current swept us along
at more than post speed.

Before the noon meal we had passed in turn the important shipping town
of McKeesport, at the mouth of the Youghiogheny, and the hillside ravine
near Turtle Creek, where, within a gunshot of the river bank, the
British General Braddock met with his disastrous defeat at the hands of
the French and Indians, and where he whose life was to prove so precious
to his countrymen came so near to losing it beneath the edge of the
tomahawk.

In the midst of our meal we came so close under the heights of
Pittsburg that I had need to leave the table to take advantage of a
slant in the current which would bring us shoreward. Before the others
joined me, I had the boat fast alongside the warehouse wharf where I
hoped to find the chest of clothes I had sent on from Washington. My
expectations were not of the firmest, for I knew the Cumberland Pike to
be quite as miry as the Philadelphia road. It had been, indeed, a close
shave, for on inquiring of the warehouse keeper, I learned that my box
had come down from Redstone by skiff only the previous evening.

We had no letters to deliver in Pittsburg, and no desire either to wade
the unpaved streets or to linger beneath a sky whose shower of soot bore
out only too well the boast of the townsfolk that good coal could be
bought in their streets at five cents a bushel. For my part, I would
prefer to pay more for wood fires, and escape the smearing of house and
garments with lampblack. However, the residents may consider this
inconvenience offset by their numerous social and cultural advantages,
which are unequalled among all our trans-Alleghany towns, unless it may
be at Lexington or Cincinnati.

As we put off again into the stream, I pointed out the site of Fort
Pitt, built by the British to replace the French Fort Duquesne. But a
storm cloud drove down over the Pittsburg hills, and Alisanda hastened
to withdraw with her uncle into the cabin to escape the April rain which
soon poured upon us in torrents. It was not, as I had hoped, a mere
squall. With the passing of the first roaring wind gusts that rocked
our heavy craft, the rain settled into a steady drizzle, which obscured
river and banks for the rest of the afternoon, and sheeted us in like a
black pall throughout the night.

With the nightfall, trusting to the height of the flood to carry us over
all shoals and rocks, I made no attempt to effect a landing or to tie up
to the half-submerged willows along the bank. We had wood enough aboard
to last for three days or more, and our fireplace, with its pots and
ranger, saved the necessity of a shore camp to prepare food.

As there was no call for Don Pedro to suffer a needless wetting, I
argued that I could not trust him on watch so dark a night,--which was
no more than the truth of the matter. My supper was brought to me in the
prow by Chita, and her peppery stew was doubly welcome after my
afternoon's drenching. She carried back with her instructions to obtain
one of my dry suits from Don Pedro and take it through to the kitchen.
About midnight, the boat chancing to swing about stern foremost in the
current, I left my watch long enough to shift into dry garments before a
crackling fire.

With the first gray glimmer of dawn through the breaking rain clouds,
Don Pedro came to take my post, and Chita slipped out in her nightshift
to set on her coffee pot. By the time I had breakfasted, the sun had
dispelled the mists, and I saw that we were already in the Long Reach,
having passed during the night by Steubenville and Wheeling. It was a
run possible only at the height of the Spring fresh.

Upon my inquiry, Don Pedro informed me that he did not wish to stop at
Marietta, that prim New England village planted by Rufus Putnam and his
fellow Yankees on the site of Old Wyandot Town. He had, however, a
letter to deliver to Mr. Harmon Blennerhasset, owner of an island some
fourteen or fifteen miles below Marietta. So, having made a rough
calculation of the speed of the current, I went in to my bunk, after
explaining that they need not waken me before midday, unless the boat
tended to leave the current.

Sharp upon the noon hour I was roused by the don, and informed that we
had already passed Marietta, some five miles back. His description of
the Muskingum River and the block houses and other buildings of the town
would have convinced me that it was indeed Marietta, had I not known
that it was the only settlement of the size between Wheeling and
Gallipolis. What was more, I recognized the greater width of the river
bottoms, which were now flooded to the higher levels, the many islands
which divided the current, and the lowness of the densely wooded hills.

But having, as I felt sure, something over an hour to wait before
sighting Mr. Blennerhasset's well-known island, I made my toilet, and
leaving Don Pedro at the steer-oar, indulged myself in the great
pleasure of sitting down at table with the senorita. Either because of
her determination to live up to the customs of the country, or owing to
my watch in the rain,--which any riverman would have taken as a matter
of course,--she was most friendly and gracious in her manner, greeting
me with a smile and giving me her hand to salute. Not content with this,
she saw to it that Chita served me with particular attention, and
herself pressed food and drink upon me.

Only one who has lived among the Spanish people can realize what a
privilege it was to be thus received into the intimate society of my
travelling companions. We conversed with cousinly gaiety and freedom on
all subjects which came to mind, from the ambition of the great Corsican
to the latest fashionable ditties, and Alisanda filled me with
delightful anticipations by stating that amongst her baggage was a
guitar, which she and Don Pedro were not unskilled in fingering.

After the dessert of sweets, or _dulces_, to use the Spanish term, I
went out to relieve Don Pedro at the steer-oar and to inquire whether he
wished to stop over at the island. He replied that it might be necessary
to confer at some length with Mr. Blennerhasset.

A half-hour later we were sheering our craft toward the Virginia bank,
to make the wharf which faced the Ohio shore, near the upper end of
Blennerhasset Island. As the channel which separated the island from
Virginia was scarcely a stone's-throw across, our course brought us well
to the left of the river's centre. With the ready aid of Don Pedro at
the steer-oar, I managed, between sculling and poling, to bring the
flat alongside the wharf. Before I could leap out, a negro ran down the
bank and made fast the line tossed him from the stern by Chita.

Another slave who had sighted us from the crest of the bank turned and
ran with the news of our landing, so that before we could straighten our
garments and step ashore, Mr. Blennerhasset himself came hastening down
the bank to welcome us. Our visit had been unheralded, and, so far as he
knew at the moment, we were no more than chance strangers. But it was
enough for this cultured, unworldly Irish gentleman that persons of
quality had stopped at his gate.

Senor Vallois introduced Alisanda and myself with all the stateliness of
a Spanish hidalgo, and followed by delivering over the letter from
Colonel Burr. With no more than a glance at the address, Mr.
Blennerhasset thrust the letter into his pocket, and pressed us to
accompany him at once to his house, where, he said, Mrs. Blennerhasset
would be anxiously awaiting her guests.

Such warmth of hospitality would have melted even a reluctant visitor,
and we were far from unwilling to view the famed beauties of the place.
My one regret was that I could not claim the privilege of escorting the
senorita. Don Pedro and I ascended the bank behind the others, Chita
remaining aboard the boat.

Entering through the handsome stone-columned gateway at the top of the
bank, we passed between the shrubbery and a meadow, along a gravelled
walk, for somewhat over a hundred paces, to the front of the mansion.
The facade was remarkable for the semi-circular shape of the pillared
porticos which curved forward from each front corner of the main body of
the house. Though built of wood, the handsome proportions and two
stories of the mansion lent to it an air of distinction rarely to be
found west of the mountains.

Mr. Blennerhasset bowed us into a small front parlor, where we found his
comely and charming wife waiting to receive us, in the company of their
two little sons. After we had been welcomed by this pleasant lady no
less cordially than by her husband, Don Pedro stated that there might be
matters of mutual interest to discuss when our host had read his letter.

At this Mrs. Blennerhasset suggested that the gentlemen should be left
to their privacy, and Don Pedro invited me to share in the conference.
But I explained that I did not consider myself at liberty to do so, in
view of the fact that I was not yet irrevocably committed to the
projects of Mr. Burr. Mrs. Blennerhasset at once invited me to join with
her and Alisanda in an inspection of the mansion.

We entered first a dining-room of ample proportions, where our hostess
gave the little boys into the charge of their nurse. The apartment was
furnished with a richness and taste which compelled a look of surprise
even from the senorita. We were soon to learn that the mansion was
furnished throughout in the same lavish style.

What most interested me at the time was Mr. Blennerhasset's scientific
workroom in the rear of a second parlor which led off behind from the
dining-room. Here it was our host conducted his experiments in chemistry
and physics, and here he had properly arranged a fair-sized apothecary's
stock. Upon my remarking that I wished to purchase a quantity of
Peruvian bark and calomel,--my stock of which, in my haste, I had
neglected to replenish before leaving Washington,--the lady immediately
requested me to measure out the quantity I desired, and absolutely
refused any compensation.

We next visited the library at the end of one of the curved porticos.
Here, much against my desire, I was given permission to remain while the
ladies visited the kitchens in the other wing.

Tactfully as I was dismissed, the shaft rankled none the less sorely.
Yet happening to open a choice volume of European travels, I so lost
myself in the printed pages that the appearance of my host some two
hours later came as a surprise.

He explained that arrangements had been made for our party to join them
at dinner, and would not take a refusal from me. A servant had already
been sent aboard the boat, that Chita might attend on her mistress. The
man had orders to remain until morning, should I, following the example
of Senor Vallois and his niece, agree to lie the night in the house.
Unwilling to tax their hospitality so far, I excused myself from this
last, on the plea of my duties as boat captain, but before leaving I
gladly accepted his invitation to return and join them at dinner.

In due time I returned, and I trust that my appearance did full credit
to my country. Enough said that nay hat, shoes, breeches and waistcoat
were of the latest mode, that my coatcuffs extended to my finger tips,
that my shirt-frill was like a snowy waterfall, and that my coatfront
was padded to the fulness of a swelling bullfrog. As for my luckless
throat, it was so swathed about with its bandages of cambric that my
chin had a most supercilious elevation, and to look about I must first
turn my body. The neck was all but immovable.

This martyrdom was, however, small price to pay for my evening. Of all
costumes calculated to reveal and enhance the lovelinesses of women, the
Empire modes are by far the foremost. Indeed, such is the thinness of
gauzy materials and the scantness of breadth required, that,--if I may
venture my opinion not alone as a physician but as a gentleman,--the
flimsy, graceful costumes, though to be praised for the absence of
injurious stays, are too apt to over-expose the forms of the fair sex.

Yet a modest woman, by stopping short of the utmost extremes of fashion,
and no less by comporting herself with dignity and decorum, can suggest
thoughts no less elevating than enravishing through the graces of this
mode. With this by way of guide to my meaning, I shall not be
misunderstood when I speak of my rapture over the swell of my lady's
firm white bosom and the exquisite curves of her lissome young body
beneath the clinging sarsenet of her low-cut waist and narrow skirt. I
looked and adored as the artist adores the perfect lines of a
masterpiece. Yet with my adoration there flamed a fire of passion of so
white a heat that it burned away all dross of base imaginings.

I say nothing of our hostess,--not that she lacked in beauty or charm;
but who looks at the moon when the sun is in the sky?

The dinner did not disappoint the expectations roused by the lavish
display of the household; though I cannot say that Mr. Blennerhasset's
wines compared well with those of President Jefferson, unless it might
be the Madeira.

Upon the withdrawal of the ladies, Mrs. Blennerhasset urged me so
cordially to join them soon, and Alisanda seconded the invitation with
so sweet a smile, that I did not linger at table above half an hour. My
going was hastened by the conjecture that our host and Don Pedro might
wish to resume their conference. That I was not mistaken in this was
evidenced by the fact that they did not follow me for two hours or more.

In the meantime I had been led up a spacious stairway to the
drawing-room, directly above where we had dined. The room was notable
for the stucco work of the rounded cornices and ceiling, and the
harmonious tones of the wall-hangings, of which those above the chair
rail were green, bordered with gold, and those below reddish gray.

My entrance found the ladies seated together at a large forte piano, in
the execution of a duet which gave full display alike to their
accomplished skill and to the genius of the composer, the noted German
musician Beethoven. After the duet, our hostess favored us with a
ballad, and Alisanda no less readily followed with a Castilian song in
the Spanish. Her voice, even better trained than Mrs. Blennerhasset's
fine high soprano, was a liquid contralto that had in it the murmur of
sparkling waters, the sweetness of silver bells, and the sadness of
tears. I was affected almost beyond self-control, and it was as much
this as the disability from my high cravat which forced me to decline my
turn.

At my request, the ladies returned to another round of duet and song,
and followed with the reverse,--playing solos and singing a duet. In the
end they persuaded me to join them in a trio, and afterwards were so
gracious as to compliment me on my baritone.

On the whole, it was the most heavenly evening I had ever known, and
when, upon the appearance of the other gentlemen, I begged my leave of
our hostess, it was to dance my way down to the boat on winged feet.
Such a feast of divine music and diviner beauty seldom falls to the lot
of mere mortals.




CHAPTER IX

MY INDIAN TALE


Dawn found me clad in my buckskins, ready for the start. All my articles
of finery lay again in their snug retreat, and with those nightmares of
beaudom disposed of in a way to give me most comfort, I was once more at
my ease. Of all costumes suitable to action, there is none to equal our
old-time forest ranger's dress of fur cap, buckskin shirt, thigh
leggings, and good elk or buffalo moccasins.

To my surprise, the Spanish woman came aboard while I was toasting my
bacon, with word that her mistress and Don Pedro would follow as soon as
they had risen from the breakfast table. Alisanda had sent her down to
prepare food for me. The announcement of this brought a glow to my face
which I saw did not pass unnoticed by the woman. But she masked all
expression under her hard stolidity, and when I declined her services,
set about arranging her mistress's evening attire and returning it to
its box.

Shortly afterwards Mr. Blennerhasset and his wife made their appearance,
escorting my fellow travellers to the river bank and down to the boat
itself. I hastened to add my adieus to the others, and the tactful
couple, seeing that I was impatient to be under way, cut short what had
threatened to be a protracted parting.

With repeated last calls of farewell and wavings of hat and
handkerchief, we swung out into the current and drifted swiftly away
from our over-hospitable host and hostess. A few minutes carried us
below the cultivated upper portion of the island, and I noticed Don
Pedro eying the wooded remainder with a peculiar intentness. Afterwards
I was told that certain of the huge cypresses shadowed a bayou, in which
at the time we passed there were already being collected boats and
munitions for the flotilla that was to form the nucleus of Colonel
Burr's ill-starred expedition.

[Illustration: "We swung out into the current and drifted swiftly away"]

Of this and the nefarious plans since charged to that great dreamer, I
then had not the remotest suspicion, and soon turned my attention from
the pondering senor.

Scattered up and down the midchannel for three miles or more was a
string of barges, flats, and keelboats, laden with flour, lumber, and
other up-river products, for the market at New Orleans. Like ourselves,
they were coming down from the higher shipping-ports with the Spring
fresh.

At my request, Alisanda kept within the house, until, by a vigorous bit
of sculling, I had sent our craft beyond earshot of the nearest of these
barges. The huge, clumsy craft, which must have been upwards of four
hundred tons burden, was manned by the usual crew of twenty-five or
thirty rowdy, drunken rivermen, whose ribaldry and rude jests were
unfitted for the ears of a gentlewoman.

By adroit steering and an occasional return to my sculling, we were
fortunate enough to keep our distance from these other boats, and for
the greater part of the day I had the pleasure of pointing out to
Alisanda the beauties of the river scenery. Rightful in fact, and most
appropriate in truth, is the interpretation which tells us that "Ohio"
means "the beautiful river."

A day of clear, warm sunshine, marred by only one shower, gave us our
first chance to share the ever-shifting views of headlands and rolling,
wooded hills. Though the forest was as yet only half in leaf, and the
height of the flood covered all other than the highest of the bottoms,
the nature of the scene was an unending wonder to my companions, who in
turn compared it with the sterile mountains of Old Spain and the deserts
of New Spain. They could not liken it to the tamed woodlands of England;
for, notwithstanding a generation of settlement, with the river long
since the main artery of a great commerce, these banks were as yet in
many places unbroken wilderness, the abode of elk and deer and wolf, of
tigerish panther and lumbering bear.

High above us soared eagles and turkey buzzards, spying for carrion and
live prey, each according to his nature, as they had soared and spied in
the late sixties and early seventies, when Gist and Boone and the great
Washington first threaded the untraced wilderness and skimmed downstream
in their bark canoes to the dark and bloody hunting-grounds of the
hostile tribes. Since then what vast changes had come over the land!
What thousands of homesteads hewn out of the gloomy depths of beech and
oak, walnut and maple forest! What scores of settlements and towns,
ranging in size up to Cincinnati, with its three hundred and more
houses, many of brick and stone, its fifteen hundred whites and thousand
slaves, its genteel coaches and chariots, and its educational
institutions!

Yet, aside from the slaughtered buffalo and the backward-driven savage,
how small the change in the forest life! Along the rocky banks the
deadly rattlesnake and copperhead still lay coiled in wait; the deer
came timidly down to the water along old game traces where the panther
still lurked; and flocks of screaming, chattering paroquets still flew
up river from the southwest, their emerald plumage contrasting with the
bright hues of the redbirds and woodpeckers, the orioles and
kingfishers.

The following day, below the mouth of the Scioto River, we had view of
one of the strangest sights of the West,--a flight of passenger pigeons.
The flock passed upstream above the left shore in a dense column and
with a tremendous roaring sound of their millions of wings. Though we
were going in a contrary direction, hours passed before we saw the last
stragglers of their amazing multitude, and this despite the fact that
they are among the swiftest of birds. While making a southward bend of
the stream, we came beneath them, the lowermost flying so near overhead
that I was able to kill a number simply by flinging fagots among them.
As their flesh, though dark, is choice eating, we enjoyed a most savory
pie at the evening meal.

During the night the boat caught me nodding and gave itself into the
grasp of an eddy, which held it fast for two hours or more. My regret
over the delay was short-lived, since at dawn I made the welcome
discovery that it had caused us to part company with the last of the
cargo flotilla. The rivermen were well supplied with skiffs, and as some
of them are not above theft and even outright piracy, I had spent most
of these two nights in vigilant watch, with my rifle and Don Pedro's
pistols charged and primed against a night attack.

Less welcome than the absence of such consorts was the cold rain which
set in before dawn and lasted well along toward noon, with now and then
a slashing drive of sleet. I spent the dreary hours fast asleep in my
bunk, for Don Pedro insisted upon his right to share the hardships of
our voyage.

When I turned out, the sun had burst through, and the leaden clouds were
rolling away to the eastward. My first act was to sweep the Ohio shore
with an anxious glance. The swiftly changing vistas of winding river and
pleasant hills that undulated beneath their cloak of budding green, told
me that we had entered upon the run of the Great Bend. By good fortune,
I was just in time to sight the well-remembered hills of my childhood
home. Another twist of the channel brought us in view of the Little
Miami.

Cap in hand, I stepped to the side of the flat, and stood quiet and
apart, gazing at the rough, white stone that rose clear against the
sky-line on the first crest below the stream's mouth. What memories of
childhood rushed in upon me! what bitterness and grief!

At last the envious river swept us around a masking hill. I turned
slowly about, with all my heaviness plainly written in my look. Less
than three paces behind me stood the senorita, her dark eyes fixed upon
me with a soft pity far different from their usual mockery.

"You grieve!" she murmured.

"It is the grave of my mother."

Don Pedro dropped the handle of the steer-oar and turned to me with a
courtesy that went far deeper than outer form. "Your mother? May the
Virgin bless her!"

Alisanda made the sign of the cross, and her lips moved in quick prayer:
"_Ave Maria purisima_--"

After a little the don ventured a word of consolation: "It is a
beautiful place for a tomb,--serene and grand on its solitary hillcrest.
When my own time comes, may I rest as well!"

Serene!--beautiful! The words roused me from my unmanly weakness.

"You do not know!" I cried. "Her grave was dug among the ashes of our
home. She was murdered by the Shawnees."

"You speak of the Indian savages?" murmured Alisanda. "Is it so long ago
as that?"

"In my boyhood--in ninety-one--the Spring before St. Clair's terrible
defeat. The northern tribes raided the settlements from above Pittsburg
to the lower Kentucky, with a fury before unknown. The ferocious braves
crept by night through the very streets of Cincinnati and under the
walls of Fort Washington. Our home, outlying yonder on the Little Miami,
was one of the first struck. The memory of that morning is burned deep
into my brain. My father had gone into town to barter some skins for
flour, and my mother was part way down the hillside, ploughing for corn.
I had gone up to the cabin to fetch a jug of cider, and was half-way
back, when a score of Shawnees in their black war paint leaped from the
ravine and set upon my mother.

"I ran to help her, but she, striking bravely at the treacherous savages
with the ox-goad, screamed to me to fly for the guns. I turned as she
fell under the stroke of a tomahawk. The murderers leaped after me,
yelling and firing. Rifle balls and arrows whistled about me, some
piercing my shirt. But I gained the cabin unhurt. On the pegs beside the
door lay my father's rifle and his old Queen Anne musket of the
Revolution, which I had that morning charged half to the muzzle with
swanshot in preparation for a bear which had been stealing our porkers.

"Barring the door with one hand, I caught down the musket with the
other, and fired through the nearest loophole. My pursuers were coming
on fairly in a body, and the distance was such that the swanshot
scattered just enough to cover the foremost warriors. One fell dead and
three more were wounded. In a twinkling all others than the one killed
leaped to either side and checked their rush.

"But their chief came bounding up from the rear through their midst,
flourishing his bloody tomahawk and yelling to them to come on. Young as
I was, if given a support for the heavy barrel, I could handle my
father's rifle as well as he himself. The chief fell within twenty paces
of the door, with the hole of the rifle ball between his glaring eyes.
At this, fearful that they had run upon a trap, the red warriors ran
dodging and side-leaping to the nearest brush, while I caught up a knife
and rushed out to scalp the chief--"

"_Por Dios!_" cried Don Pedro. "You ran out!--you took the scalp of the
chief under the eyes of his followers?"

"My mother's scalp hung at his belt. I was mad with fury. I would have
struck the murderer even had the others already turned."

"They did turn?" asked Alisanda, her eyes widening with the horror of
the vision she pictured.

"They turned as I burst from the cabin. I was surrounded--seized
fast--but not before I had torn off the scalp of their chief and shaken
it in their painted faces!" My eyes flamed at the memory of that fierce
vengeance.

"_Madre de Dios!_" breathed the Spaniard--"You stung them to wildest
fury!"

"I sought to make them strike me down. Better death under the tomahawk
than the slow agony of torture at the stake. What greater shame to them
than for a boy of twelve to kill two of their most famous warriors,--to
taunt them with the bloody scalp of their chief?"

"Yet they spared you!" whispered Alisanda, her eyes fixed upon my
flushed face.

"For the torture. When they took me north to the Shawnee towns, I was
made to run the gantlet. Being quick-footed and nimble, I avoided most
of the heavier blows and midway of the line dodged out sideways,
tripping up the old squaw who sought to stop me. Before the rabble could
overtake me, I had set myself in the midst of the chiefs and foremost
warriors of the village, whose dignity had prevented them from joining
in the lesser torture.

"My craft in tripping the squaw and avoiding the greater number of my
tormentors won me the protection of the chiefs, and while they waved off
the boys and squaws, the young warrior Tecumseh, one of the brothers of
the chief I had killed, claimed me for adoption in place of his kinsman.
The other brother, Elskwatawa, promptly seconded Tecumseh. After much
dispute, their claim was allowed, and for three years I lived as a
member of the tribe, always watched against escape, yet treated with
utmost kindness.

"That Fall the leading members of my tribe were present with the braves
of the Miamis, Delawares, Wyandots, Iroquois, and other tribes, who made
a second Braddock's Defeat of their battle with General St. Clair. They
brought back no captives, but such quantities of plunder and such tales
of slaughter that I could hardly credit either my eyes or my ears.

"After this I was taken to the neighborhood of the British fort near the
Maumee Rapids, where the notorious renegade McKee proved that even the
worst of men have their better nature. He sought to ransom me from my
adopted brothers. This was refused, but I was permitted to come and go
freely to the fort. One day, chancing upon a book of physic in the scant
library of the post surgeon, I showed such interest that the portly old
doctor seized upon me as a _protege_.

"Within a year I was forced to return to the Shawnee towns, but with me
I took a Latin grammar and my precious treatise on physic. Again I was
brought to the Maumee, and there placed for safekeeping in the fort
during General Wayne's cautious but steady advance north from Fort
Washington. This meant months more of study under the tuition of my
kindly surgeon; so that upon the day of Wayne's glorious victory at
Fallen Timbers, when he drove the routed warriors of the allied tribes
past the very walls of the fort, I was further advanced in my studies
than many an English schoolboy of seventeen or eighteen, and, I must
confess, fast acquiring British sympathies.

"But the sight of Wayne's victorious cavalry, who rode up defiantly
within pistol-shot of the palisades, roused in me such a feverish desire
to escape that I should have flung myself upon the bayonets of the
sentinels rather than have remained. Fortunately the garrison was so
intent upon the burning of the dwellings and trading establishments
without the fort by our army, that I was able to slip over the stockade
with the aid of a rope, and make off safely in the darkness."

Alisanda sighed her relief of the suspense that had held her tense. "So
you escaped!" she exclaimed.

"To the American camp where I found both my father and my mother's
cousin, Captain Van Rensselaer. The captain had been shot from his
saddle during the battle, but was able to return with us to Cincinnati
when my father's term of service as a mounted volunteer expired. It was
Captain Rensselaer who, upon his return to New York, sent for me to
complete my medical and other studies in Columbia College."

"_Por Dios!_ What a life!" cried Don Pedro. "We also have our Indian
battles. But to live among the ferocious savages--_Santa Maria_! Small
wonder you men of the forest wilderness are men of iron!"

"Many settlers of soft fibre have come over the mountains since the days
of peace. But the men who first hewed their homes in the wilderness had
to be of iron. Such are those who now press on to the new frontiers of
the South, the Lakes, and the Mississippi."

"Among whom is our friend Don Juan," replied Alisanda.

I looked, thinking to see a mocking glance, and instead found myself
gazing down into the fathomless depths of her eyes.




CHAPTER X

THE FATHER OF WATERS


So far I have written at some length of our voyage, for it was these
first days that set the stamp upon the relations of our little party.
From the hills of Cincinnati, which we sighted as I ended the story of
my boyhood, on down the long descent to Natchez, I was as one of Don
Pedro's own kinsmen. The name spoken by Alisanda, seemingly in jest,
became the name by which all addressed me, only that before we entered
the Mississippi both the senor and she had begun to drop the "Don" in
favor of the familiar "Juan."

So "Juan" and "Alisanda" it became between my lady and me, and Don Pedro
looked on and smiled. Yet with and beneath it all, both held to a subtle
reserve which told me plainer than words that the barriers were down
only for a truce, and not for a treaty,--that our freedom of conduct as
fellow-travellers would at the journey's end be barred by a return to
customs not of the country.

At times when alone on watch at night, I thought with misgiving of the
approaching days when my lady would resume her fine Castilian hauteur
and Don Pedro his punctilious politeness. But on the whole I was
content to make the most of my opportunities,--to drift with the current
of our companionship as the boat drifted with the stream.

Milder days came to us as we floated down into the Southwest,--days of
grateful sunshine and lessening rains,--heavenly hours beneath the blue
sky, when, inspired by the blossoming springtime upon the verdant
shores, we sat together in the open stern and sang solos and duets and
trios to the accompaniment of the guitar.

With the coming of nightfall I learned to look longingly for fog or wet,
for a clear moon meant a night on watch, that we might lose nothing of
the drift. But a dark sky gave me excuse to tie up to the bank for the
night and join in an evening of music and genteel talk about our
crackling beechwood fire.

Then there were lessons for me in Spanish from the don, and in the
playing of the guitar by Alisanda. It was strange how clumsy were my
fingers and how repeatedly I had to ask my fair teacher to place them
correctly.

And so we swept on down the beautiful river, the swirling depth of the
Spring fresh bearing us clear over the rocks of the Ohio Falls at
Louisville, as over the hundreds of miles of inundated flats and shoals
above and below.

At Lusk's Ferry Don Pedro had planned to leave the river and cut across
country horseback, over the forty-league road to Kaskaskia, which would
have saved nearly half the keelboat journey up the Mississippi from the
mouth of the Ohio to St. Louis. For this we should have taken aboard our
horses at Louisville or at the little settlement of Shawnee Town below
the Wabash, since at Lusk's Ferry suitable mounts for our party were not
to be had at any price. In the outcome, however, the miscarriage of
plans proved truly fortunate.

Having no other choice, we dropped on downstream past the Cumberland and
Tennessee Rivers, to Fort Massac, our lonesome American stockade, built
near the site of the old French post of the same name. We tied up to the
steep bank of clay and gravel, and I made a landing. Upon inquiry at the
post, Captain Bissell, the commandant, whom I had met the previous Fall
on my eastward journey, informed me at some length as to the movements
of General Wilkinson. Report having been received that General Herrera,
the Spanish commander in Texas, was gathering a force to march upon
Natchitoches, the Commander-in-Chief had descended the Mississippi for
the double purpose of strengthening the forts at New Orleans and of
assembling a force to repel the expected invasion.

I intimated to the captain that Senor Vallois was not averse to a war
which might give his country opportunity to throw off the Spanish yoke.
At this he confided to me as his opinion that the long-impending
hostilities seemed now inevitable, and that he would welcome a change
which would not only relieve him of his _ennui_ in this solitary post,
but would tend to break up the general stagnation of the service.

His urgent invitation brought Don Pedro and Alisanda ashore for a much
needed change. Neither had set foot on shore for days, and I persuaded
Don Pedro that the recreation was well worth the delay. But my pleasure
over the enjoyment of the exercise was not added to by the sight of the
gallant captain and his no less gallant lieutenant receiving the smiles
of Alisanda for their attentions. As a good excuse for avoiding the
painful spectacle, I secured some spare jars of sweetmeats from Chita,
and bartered them in the little settlement near the fort stockade for
chickens, eggs, and butter,--all of which would be still higher in price
and harder to obtain after we entered the Mississippi.

Soon after the landing of my companions, so strong a head wind set in
that we were forced to lie moored over night. Toward morning it fell to
a pleasant breeze, and I put off at dawn, without waiting to rouse the
others.

Midday found us afloat on the broad bosom of the Father of Waters, whose
noble flood, swollen above St. Louis by the silty downpourings of the
Missouri, and here by the Spring torrent of the Ohio, rolled on
gulfwards in full-banked majesty. It was a grand sight, but one to which
Don Pedro and Alisanda gave more thought than myself. Captain Bissell
had dropped me a word of warning as to possible trouble from canoe
parties of Chickasaw and other Indians, which, in view of Alisanda's
presence, gave me no little uneasiness.

That night and the next I called upon Don Pedro to watch, turn about,
with myself. I even went so far as to land at New Madrid; but the
villagers knew nothing of the Indians. At last, late in the afternoon of
the third day, we sighted a canoe full of warriors putting out from the
left bank, with the evident intention of intercepting us. At my command
Alisanda and her woman sought shelter in their room, while I left the
steering to the don, and stood ready with my rifle and his pistols.

When I signed the party to hold off at hailing distance, the foremost
warrior signed back that they were friends. But they were now near
enough for me to see their black war paint. Again I signed the leader to
keep off, and he in turn hailed me in Shawnee, demanding lead and
gunpowder. Before I realized what I was saying, I had answered him in
his own tongue, telling him to bring his party around under our stern.

At this unexpected address, the chief raised the hand which I knew had
been grasping his rifle. I responded with three or four quick signs that
drew a guttural exclamation from the least stolid of the warriors. They
were not used to meeting white men who could claim fellowship in their
tribe. But as they paddled nearer, I stared back at their chief, hardly
less astonished. There could be no mistaking his noble, powerful
features. He was my adopted brother Tecumseh!

The instant I recognized him with certainty, I laid down my rifle, and
called to him in Shawanese: "Tecumseh, many years have come and gone
since we parted at the British fort on the Maumee, yet do you not know
again your white brother Scalp Boy?"

At the word he rose from his knees and stood grandly erect in the bow of
the canoe, staring at me from beneath his levelled palm. The craft was
now within twenty yards of us, and Don Pedro could not withhold a
muttered exclamation of apprehension and warning. Almost at the same
moment Tecumseh stooped, and catching up a corner of his blanket, wiped
the grim war paint from his face. The paddlers at once paused to follow
his example.

"_Santisima!_" muttered Don Pedro. "Why do they rub their faces?"

"They remove the war paint in proof of friendship. Their chief is one of
my Indian brothers, who saved me from torture."

"But they come close! You will not permit them to enter the boat, with
Alisanda--"

"Fear nothing," I hastened to assure him. "We are safer now than when we
were alone. My brother and his people can be trusted with our lives and
our property."

"It is true, senor," remarked Tecumseh in clear though guttural English.
"Scalp Boy and his friends are sacred in the eyes of all Shawnees. He
is a member of our tribe and my brother."

I reached out and grasped the hand of the chief as the canoe came
alongside.

"Come aboard and feast with us," I said.

He shook his head. "No, Scalp Boy; that may not be. It warms my heart to
again grasp your hand; but you are an American white man; you have long
ago forgotten your Shawnee kindred--"

"No, no, Tecumseh! I have always remembered you and Elskwatawa, my
true-hearted brothers--"

"Tecumseh does not blame his white brother for returning to his white
kindred. There is no enmity between us. But Elskwatawa our brother has
become a communer with the Great Spirit, and he has told the redman how
evil are the customs and food and firewater of the white man. It is evil
for the redman to mingle with the white people."

"Have you then taken the warpath, my brother? Is that why you came out
against us in war paint?" I asked.

"We came out to attack you because we had need of powder, and I would
not beg. But we are not on the warpath."

"You are far from home," I remarked.

He swept his hand around in a grand gesture. "Elskwatawa the Prophet and
I make a great journey to our red cousins. We visit all the tribes from
the Great Lakes to that greater water in the South which the white
people call the Gulf."

"To form a great conspiracy against my people!" I exclaimed.

"Your people!" he repeated. "No, we seek to convince the tribes of my
people that they are all brothers, and should join in one nation."

"That they may seek to destroy the white people!"

"That they may hold back the white man from stealing any more of their
land."

He had me there. I could only look my regret; for I knew that, whatever
his intent, the result must be war.

He returned to the object of his averted attack. "Give us powder and
lead, Scalp Boy. We cannot eat the white man's food. We need powder and
lead to shoot game."

"Not to make war?" I asked.

"I speak with a straight tongue," he said.

At this I went into the cabin and fetched out a small keg of powder and
a quarter-hundredweight of lead. He motioned me to hand the gifts to the
warrior in the stern of the canoe, and when I turned again to him, he
held out a beautifully wrought belt of wampum.

"It is little I can give to my brother," he said.

"I take the gift because my brother offers it," I replied. "What I have
given is nothing. All that I could give would not repay what Tecumseh
did for me in my boyhood!"

He looked me up and down with an approving glance. "Scalp Boy has grown
to be a great warrior. I will ask the Great Spirit that we may never
meet on the battlefield."

Before I could respond, he signed his warriors to push off, and the
canoe shot away at arrowy speed. At once Alisanda slipped out of the
cabin, to peer after the darting craft and the grim savages, whose
naked, bronzed forebodies, fantastically streaked with the war paint,
swayed to the paddle strokes so vigorously as to bob their plumed war
locks about in a most comical manner. It was a sight she was not apt to
see again even on the Mississippi, if only because of the redman's
dislike to exert himself except when hunting or on the warpath.

Though we had come so well through this adventure, the accident of our
escape from attack did not lessen my fear of visits from Indians
belonging to other tribes. To my vast relief, the following day brought
us safely in the approach of a great flotilla of flour-laden flats,
whose draught of water gave them better headway than our boat. The drift
of our craft, which sat so much higher in the water, was at times more
retarded by the head winds. The difference was so slight that we were
able to keep the others in sight until another flotilla overtook us. In
fact, so vast was the extent of the river traffic that from this point
until our landing at Natchez, we were never beyond view of one or more
descending vessels, while even keelboats, ascending under sail or poles,
were not uncommon.

Though far from as swift as the flooded Ohio, the Mississippi bore us
rapidly on our way. Divided by island after island and contorted this
way and that by out-jutting points, its mighty current, swollen to vast
width, yet swept on in majestic grandeur past towering bluffs and
inundated lowlands and wildernesses as virgin as in the remote days of
De Soto the Spaniard, and La Salle the Frenchman, other than for an
occasional plantation and, at longer intervals, the log cabins of the
little settlements.

I will not speak of our difficulties from snags and sawyers and delaying
eddies, or of the extreme difficulty of shooting the waterfowl, which,
though abundant, had long since been taught wariness by the guns aboard
the swarming river craft. I shot a swan and now and then a duck, but for
the most part was held too close to the navigation of our awkward flat
to hunt such shy game.

On the other hand, our well-stocked larder supplied us with all else
than fresh meat and milk, and to obtain fish we had only to trail a line
over the stern. The season was favorable to the avoidance of fevers and
agues; the high water obviated in a measure the danger of shoals and
sawyers, and I had had the forethought to provide nettings, which saved
us when within the cabin the torments which at night we would otherwise
have suffered from mosquitoes and gnats, even out in midchannel.

So, on the whole, our days would have passed pleasantly, even without
those joys of companionship of which I have written. Aside from an
occasional fierce thunder storm, our May days on the lower river were
ideal to southern-born persons like my companions, though the fervid
sunrays on the water darkened Don Pedro's aristocratic face to a coffee
brown, and burned my ruddy complexion until it presented one unvaried
expanse of brick red.

When not at work, Chita was accustomed to doze, uncovered, in the full
blaze, mumbling in answer to my repeated warnings, that it would take a
lifetime of basking to draw the fog and wet of England and my country
from her bones. But she took great care that her mistress should never
venture out into the sun-glare unmasked. Though the senorita could
endure the heat as well as herself, there was always the senorita's
complexion to be considered.




CHAPTER XI

GENERAL WILKINSON


By tacit agreement, throughout our long voyage no mention had been made
of its purpose since the evening of our visit with the Blennerhassets.
Intimate as had been my relations with Alisanda and her uncle, it was
not the part of an honorable man to receive confidences bearing on Don
Pedro's plans, until I had seen General Wilkinson and learned whether
Colonel Burr's test of influence would stand. Unless committed to the
furtherance of the far-reaching projects which the Colonel had outlined
to me, I felt that I had no right to share the secrets of the scheme.

In compliance with my wish, Don Pedro had refrained from all allusion to
the subject, going so far as seldom to mention his home and country. In
consequence, this being Alisanda's first voyage to New Spain, I learned
so little of their plans that when we landed at Natchez I knew only that
they expected to sail from New Orleans to Vera Cruz, and from there to
travel either by _diligencia_ or private coach to a town named
Chihuahua, in the desert interior, where the don was possessed of a
great estate. Even of the nature and customs of the country I had
gathered few facts to add to the vague information acquired in past
years from the Spanish Creoles.

But with our approach to Natchez, that which had been least in my
thoughts became the uppermost. General Wilkinson was at Natchez, and the
nature of his response to my letters from Colonel Burr was a matter of
vital importance to me. A few days after our arrival would bring about
my inevitable parting from Alisanda. If that parting took place without
the knitting of new ties for the future, what hope had I of ever again
looking into the depths of her dark eyes?

But should the Commander-in-Chief prove the feasibility of Colonel
Burr's plans by agreeing to precipitate war and support the invasion of
Mexico, and should he, in addition, give to me the leadership of the
Western expedition, how strong my cause for hope! At once I could enter
into the plans of Don Pedro, and while he journeyed back to Chihuahua,
to prepare his friends for the revolution, I could lead my expedition
across the great plains, my approach to Santa Fe to be the signal for
the uprising. With war raging on the Sabine River and in Texas, the
interior provinces would be drained of Spanish troops; so that the
revolution could be gotten well under way before the Viceroy could send
up an army from the City of Mexico.

Though not a man of military training, I then believed, and am still
convinced, that this plan of campaign would have met with certain
success. Thousands of our hardy frontiersmen were ready at the word to
fling themselves across the Spanish borders, and with such men as the
fiery General Jackson to lead them, they would have soon crushed all the
forces which General Herrera could have brought against them. Their
march across Texas and to the City of Mexico would have been marked by
an unbroken succession of victories, while I, fighting side by side with
Don Pedro in the revolutionary army of Mexico, with Alisanda to win!--

But enough of idle dreams! Those who base their plans on the leadership
of wild schemers and double-dyed traitors should be grateful if the
outcome finds them unsmirched by the company they have kept.

We moored to the wharf under the bluff at Natchez, and I, dressed
fittingly for the occasion, had the pleasure of escorting Alisanda up to
the little town on the hilly slope behind the bluff-crest,--my companion
finding much to interest her in the motley crowd of Spanish and French
Creoles, Americans, negro slaves, and Chickasaw Indians.

The don had not expected to stop at this seat of the Government of
Mississippi Territory; else I have no doubt Colonel Burr would have
provided him with a letter to insure hospitality from the persons who
had so _feted_ that statesman the preceding Fall. As it was, I arranged
for the best accommodation to be had at Mickie's Hotel, and at once set
about the disposal of our floating home.

It being understood that I might be required to hasten north to St.
Louis, Don Pedro had decided to sell the flat, since, without my
company, it would be more convenient to continue the voyage to New
Orleans in a passenger boat. A flat is worth so little at this end of
the river trade that I was glad to bargain the craft for twenty dollars
to a family of French creoles. At New Orleans I might have sought in
vain for a purchaser. Scores of flats are there abandoned by the
rivermen, many of whom return to the upper shipping towns afoot.

After some hours of delay at the water front, I returned to Mickie's
Tavern with a cartload of impedimenta, including my own chest. Don Pedro
met me at the door, with the information that he had already seen
General Wilkinson, who, upon learning that I also bore despatches, had
sent him to summon me to the headquarters. The don's expression, so far
as one might read his proud features, told me that the interview had not
been over-satisfactory.

"You are not pleased at General Wilkinson?" I asked.

"_Nada_, John," he answered with a terseness which spoke volumes.

I could well imagine what he would have said, had not his courtesy
prevented.

"I will hasten," I said. "It may be he will meet you in a more favorable
mood after he has seen the letters I bear."

"God knows! Who can tell?" he murmured in Spanish.

"I hope to know within the hour," I replied.

"_Sabe Dios--Quien sabe?_" he repeated, as I set off.

I found the General's headquarters without difficulty, and upon
mentioning my name, was at once passed in by the sentinel on guard in
the piazza. When I entered the office, I found the General studying a
map of Lower Louisiana, in company with Colonel Cushing, his second in
command. For a moment he stared at me with stupid pomposity, as if he
had been overcome with the whiskey, a bottle of which stood on the table
before him. But even as I gave my name, he recognized me and beckoned me
to a seat at the table, with a fussy show of cordiality.

"Of course, of course, Dr. Robinson! Take a seat! I'm pestered with all
kinds of visitors in these days of impending war. But a gentleman is
always welcome. Colonel Cushing, you have met Dr. Robinson?--No?--One of
our most promising young physicians,--already favorably known for his
skill, both in the Upper and Lower Territory. He has, I understand, a
private claim to present for my consideration. That is my understanding,
doctor."

"You have been so kind, sir, as to give me opportunity to present a
matter of private business, if I am not mistaken."

Colonel Cushing promptly rose, excused himself, and withdrew. The
General leaned toward me, his fat, red face flushing still deeper, his
breath hurried and labored.

"You bring me letters?" he puffed.

I took out my packet, broke the seal before his eyes, and handed over
the first two letters, which were addressed to him. He tore open both
with pudgy fingers that shook, either from excitement or excess of
drink. The more bulky one he stared at for a moment, with knitted brows,
only to fling it into a drawer.

"Cypher again!" he muttered.

"You spoke to me, sir?" I asked.

He glared across at me, with what I could have sworn was panicky fear.
His voice shook: "You--you--Do you know what is in these letters?"

"You saw me break the seal of the packet," I replied. "I do not know the
contents of Colonel Burr's messages; though, from what he told me, one
letter relates to myself, and the other bears upon the death of Pitt."

"Pitt!--Pitt dead?" he gasped, losing thought of the one fear in
another.

"Have you not heard?" I asked, astonished. "It is months since his
death--midwinter."

"But--but--that puts another face on the plans! Without Pitt--without
the British ships--"

"British ships!" I exclaimed.

He started, and sought to gather together his scattered wits, hastily
pouring out and drinking half a glass of raw whiskey before again
speaking. I waved aside the bottle and a second glass which he thrust
toward me, and pointed to the other letter. "Your Excellency, may I ask
you to read what Colonel Burr has written with regard to myself?"

He caught up the letter, and after a hasty glance about the room from
door to window, began to read. I could see by the quickness with which
his eyes followed the lines that, unlike the first, it was written in a
legible hand. At the end he went back and re-read the latter part.
Coming again to the end, he laid the letter down, and addressed me with
a most bombastic assumption of dignity: "Sir, Colonel Burr takes too
much upon himself--far too much! The granting of your request, sir, is
impossible--impossible!"

Away puffed my aircastles at a word, and left me stunned and heartsick.
I had not looked for so sudden a blow. Yet I managed to protest: "Your
Excellency, I have ventured to imagine that I am not altogether lacking
in the qualities needed by the leader of such an expedition."

He unbent a trifle. "Sir, I do not question your qualifications."

"Then what prevents my appointment, Your Excellency? Is it that you wish
further recommendations? If only my friend Lieutenant Pike were here to
speak for me!"

"That, sir, is the point. I cannot give you the place, because
Lieutenant Pike has already been assigned to it."

"He!" I cried. "But he is at the sources of the Mississippi!"

"He was, sir, and the Government shall hear of it, to his just credit.
He has explored the headwaters of the river; entered into treaties with
the powerful tribes of the Sioux and Chippewas; hauled down the British
flags at the fur-trading posts, and compelled an agreement of the
Northwest Company to pay us our import duties at Michilmackinac."

"And he has returned!" I muttered.

"In April. By now he is fitting out this present expedition."

I rose and bowed. "Such being the case, Your Excellency, permit me to
wish you good-day."

"One moment," he said, leaning toward me, with a leer which doubtless he
meant for an ingratiating glance. "Has your ambition so narrow a range,
doctor?"

"My ambition?" I inquired.

"Your ambition and your interest in the projects of one who shall at
present go unnamed. I must read and consider what the gentleman has
written to me. Whatever my decision as to--those matters, I cannot give
you what you have asked; but--you will understand--there may be
possibilities--vast possibilities!--a vast Empire, stretching westward
from the Alleghanies--"

"Alleghanies!" I cried, astounded.

At sight of my face, his own turned a mottled gray. He caught at the
whiskey bottle and poured himself out a second drink. Fortified by the
draught, he gasped something about an attack of bilious fever, and
added, with a crafty smile: "You, sir, as a physician, know how this
cursed malaria flies to the head. I have the word Arkansas on my tongue,
yet say Alleghany."

The explanation at once allayed the terrible suspicion which had flashed
into my mind. It was common knowledge throughout the West that this man
had been involved with Innes and other conspirators of the separatist
plots in the nineties. But that he or Colonel Burr or any other man not
insane could dream of such treason to the Republic in these days was a
thought seemingly so preposterous that it needed only the pompous old
fellow's word of explanation to make me banish the suspicion. Yet I
realized that I had had quite enough of his company.

"Sir," I said, "my interest in the affairs of Colonel Burr hinged
entirely upon this question of the expedition. Since the honor of its
leadership has fallen to my friend Lieutenant Pike, I have nothing to
ask of you."

"You will remain in Natchez a day or two?" he inquired.

"I cannot say."

"It might prove to your interest to delay over. I may again send for
you, notwithstanding your reluctance to receive other favors than the
one I cannot grant."

I bowed and withdrew, leaving him in the act of pouring a third drink of
whiskey.




CHAPTER XII

AU REVOIR


It was not with a light heart that I returned to Mickie's Hotel. I had
made my cast, and fortune was against me. In the afternoon I had left
Alisanda smiling down upon me from the balcony of her inn window; I was
returning at nightfall to meet--Senorita Vallois. Though to the last she
and Don Pedro might hold to the familiar "Juan," how little might even
her smiles lighten the shadow of a hopeless parting!

As I entered the inn door, Mickie bustled forward to inform me, with an
air of vast importance, that at the request of the Spanish grandee, he
had arranged to serve the evening meal to the senor's party above
stairs. When he added that a plate was to be laid for myself, I hastened
to my own room for a change of linen.

My heart was too heavy for me to linger over foppish details of dress.
It was not long before I found myself at the door of the room set apart
for the private dining-parlor. Chita, who was overlooking the spreading
of the cloth by the negro attendants of the inn, conducted me through to
the balcony, where I found the don indolently puffing at his _cigarro_.

Before I could take the seat to which he waved me, Alisanda floated out
into the moonlight from the window behind him. She was a vision all
heavenly white but for her scarlet lips and sombre eyes and brows. Even
the soft tresses of her hair were hidden beneath the gauzy white drape
of tulle and lace which took the place of her black mantilla.

"_Buenas noches_, Juan," she greeted me, in a tone of liquid silver.

"God be with you, Alisanda!" I responded.

"Be seated, _amigo_," urged Don Pedro. "You have a weary look."

"I bring what to me is heavy news," I replied.

"You had in mind to ask a favor of General Wilkinson," said Alisanda.
"You have asked the favor, and--he has refused it?"

The note of sympathy in her voice soothed my despairing anger. I did not
stop to wonder at the intuition by which she had divined the object of
my visit to the General. It was enough for me that she had perceived my
heaviness, and held out to me her sympathy.

"It is true," I said, and in a few words I told them of my shattered
plans,--how I had hoped to gain fame by leading an expedition of
exploration to the West, as Lewis and Clark were exploring the
Northwest, and as my friend Pike had explored the headwaters of the
Mississippi; and how the statements of Colonel Burr had led me to hope
for still greater fame as a sharer in the freeing of Mexico.

Don Pedro leaned toward me, his eyes glowing with friendly fire. "_Por
Dios!_ Your one thought was to help us break the yoke! You would give
your life for the winning of liberty!"

I looked across at Alisanda, and the soft loveliness of her beauty in
the moonlight filled me to overflowing with the bitterness of my blasted
hopes.

"Do not think me so noble!" I replied. "I thought to fight for the
freedom of your country, but it was in hope of a reward a thousandfold
greater than my service!"

Alisanda raised her fan and gazed at me above its fluted edge with
widened eyes,--I feared in resentful wonder at my audacity. But Don
Pedro was too intent upon his own thoughts to perceive the meaning of my
words.

"_Por Dios!_" he protested. "Those who have risen against Spanish
oppression have ever met with short shrift. Shall not they who brave
death in our cause look for glorious reward in the hour of victory?"

"That is true of those who may be blessed with the chance to join your
ranks. As for me, the opportunity which I had thought to be golden has
turned to ashes in my grasp."

"_Sabe Dios!_" murmured Alisanda in so soft a tone that the words came
to me like a whisper of the evening breeze. Was it possible that after
all I still had cause for hope?

Chita's voice, drawling the usual Spanish phrase, summoned us to the
table. We rose, and Alisanda accepted my arm with a queenly
graciousness of manner which in the same moment thrilled and
disheartened me. I read it to mean that she was in a kindly mood, but
that the kindliness was due to the condescension of Senorita Vallois,
and not to the frank companionship of my fellow-traveller Alisanda. This
surmise was borne out by her manner at table, where she rallied her
uncle and myself upon our gravity, and with subtle skill, confined the
talk to the lightest of topics. The Don was as abstemious as most of his
countrymen, and Mickie's wine was a libel on the name, yet he soon
mellowed to the gay chit-chat of his niece.

It was beyond me to enter into this spirit of merriment. I forced myself
to smile outwardly and to meet their lively quips and sallies with such
nimbleness of wit as I possessed. But it went no deeper than show on my
part. The longer we sat, the heavier grew my heart. I had no joy of my
food. Even the peaches and the other fruits of the lower river tasted
bitter in my mouth. For with each fresh turn of the conversation I saw
my Alisanda slipping farther away from me, her kindly glance giving
place to the haughty gaze of the Spanish lady of blood, her familiar
address cooling to stately condescension. I was no longer "Juan," but
"doctor" and "senor," and, near the end, "Doctor Robinson."

We had come to the sweetmeats, and I noted with despair that she was on
the point of withdrawing. She had even thrust back her chair to rise,
when, with scant ceremony, a young soldier in uniform entered and
stated that His Excellency, General Wilkinson, desired the immediate
presence of Senor Vallois.

"_Carambo!_" exclaimed Don Pedro, looking regretfully at the sweetmeats.
"He might have chosen a fitter time! It is in my mind to wait."

"Is not your business with him the affair of others no less than your
own?" murmured Alisanda.

"_Santisima Virgen!_ You do well to remind me! Juan, with your
permission--"

"_Adios!_ Good fortune to you!" I cried, as he rose.

Another moment and he and the soldier had left the room. I was alone
with Alisanda. She rose, with a trace of inquietude beneath her calm
hauteur. I moved around the table to join her.

"Spare yourself the trouble," she said, with repellent sharpness. "It is
unkind to take a man of English blood from his wine."

"Senorita," I answered, "since we came in to table, you have told me all
too plainly that you no longer wish to conform to the customs of the
country. I do not wonder. Our voyage as fellow-travellers is at an end.
There is no longer need for such slight service as I was able to
render--"

"Service?" she repeated, with a curl of her scarlet lip.

Though cut to the quick, I could not give over.

"Alisanda," I said, "has it been nothing to you, all these golden days
since we met on the Monongahela?"

She raised her hand to arrange her scarf, letting fall a loose strand of
hair down her cheek.

"_Santisima Virgen!_" she murmured, with fine-drawn irony. "It has ever
been a marvel to me--so chance a meeting."

"Chance, indeed!" I replied. "Chance that the utmost of my effort could
not trace the road by which you left Washington; chance that Colonel
Burr gave me the clew for which I sought; chance that of the nine horses
I rode to a stand between Philadelphia and Elizabethtown, none failed me
in my need."

She gave me a mocking glance over her fan. "_Madre de los Dolores!_ What
a pity! A little time, and the gulf will roll between."

"I will cross that gulf!"

"Not so; for it is the gulf of the Cross," she mocked. "I go the way of
Vera Cruz--the True Cross. No heretic may pass that way."

The words struck down my last hope. It was the truth--a double truth.
The way of my body was barred by the city of the Cross; the way of my
spirit by that which to her the Cross symbolized.

"So this is the end," I replied. "We have come to the parting of the
ways. Do not fear that I shall weary you with annoying persistence. I
shall go my way before sunrise to-morrow. Only--let me ask that this
last hour with you may hold its share of sweetness with the bitterness
of parting,--Alisanda!"

"An hour?" she repeated. "The air in here is close."

She laid her fingers lightly upon my arm, and we passed out into the
moonlit balcony. For a time we sat silent, she gazing out across the
broken slopes of the town, I gazing at her still white face and shadowy
eyes. Her loveliness was part with the night and the moonlight and the
scarlet bloom of the climber upon the balcony rail.

At last I could no longer endure the thought that she was lost to me; I
could no longer deny utterance to my love and longing.

"Alisanda! dearest one! Is there then no hope that I may win you? I have
no gallant speeches--my love is voiceless; no less is it a love that
shall endure always. Alisanda! _my_ dearest one! is my love of no worth
to you? Let your heart speak! Can it not give me one word of hope?"

My voice failed me. Throughout my passionate appeal I failed to see the
slightest change in her calm face. I had failed to stir her even to
mockery. Truly all was now at an end! I bowed my head and groaned in
most unmanly fashion.

The low murmur of her voice roused me to despairing eagerness. She spoke
in a tone of light inconsequence, yet I seized upon the words as the
drowning man clutches at straws.

"Love?--love?" she repeated. "The word has become a jest. Men protest
that they know the meaning of love--that they suffer its bitterest
pangs. Yet speak to them of the days of chivalry, when gallant knights
bore the colors of their ladies through deadly battle, and the ogling
beaux turn an epigram on _les sauvages nous ancetres_!"

"Show me the way to the battlefield--I ask no more!" I cried.

"Words--words!" she mocked. "The Cid would have found his way to the
field of glory without asking. Were the way barred, El Campeador would
have hewn his way through, though the barrier were of solid rock! But
the men of to-day--!"

"Wait!" I broke in. "Have you not yourself said that the way of the gulf
is impassable for me?"

"True," she assented, "true! And not alone the gulf, but the
barrier--the gulf of water and of the Cross; the barrier of rock and of
blood."

"Blue blood and red have been known to intermingle," I argued.

"With love for solvent!" she murmured. The softness was only for the
instant. "Yet what of that other barrier?" she demanded. "Between your
land and the land to which I go lies the blood of Christ."

"Is it then religion that is the insurmountable barrier--the impassable
gulf? You have not lived all your life in Spain. I had hoped that not
even your faith could close your heart against me, if only I might prove
to you the greatness of my love."

She sat silent for what seemed an endless time, toying idly with her
fan. When at last she spoke, it was again in that light, inconsequential
tone: "To the eastward or northeastward of Santa Fe lies a vast
snow-clad sierra. My kinsman once saw it from a great distance. He says
it is called the _Sangre de Cristo_."

"_Sangre de Cristo_--the Blood of Christ!" I said, lost in wonderment.
Then a great light flashed upon me. I knelt on one knee and caught to my
lips a white hand that did not seek to escape my grasp. "The
barrier--the barrier of rock!--Alisanda! you give me hope! If I come to
you there--if I cross that barrier? Dearest one!--dearest! can you doubt
it? Though I have to find my way alone among the fierce savages of the
vast prairies; though I find that snowy range a mountain of ice and
fire, I will come to you, Alisanda--my love!"

I saw the quick rise of her bosom and the blush that suffused her cheeks
with glorious scarlet before she could raise her masking fan.

"_Santisima Virgen!_" she murmured, and broke into a little quavering,
uncertain laugh. "They speak of the cold blood of your race!"

"Alisanda!--Dearest one! Tell me I may come!"

She rose quietly, already calm again, and cold as the moonlight which
shone full upon her face. I rose with her, still clasping her hand.

"Tell me, Alisanda, may I come?"

"Why ask me that?" she said, in an even voice. "Could I prevent if you
wished to try?"

"If I cross the barrier, may I hope?"

"There would yet be the gulf."

"Gulf or barrier, I swear I will find my way to you, though it be
through fire and flood! I will seek you out and win you, though you hide
your beauty beneath a nun's veil!"

Such was the force of my passion, I again saw her bosom rise to a
deep-drawn breath and the edges of her sensitive nostrils quiver. Yet
this time she did not blush, and her voice cut with its fine-drawn
irony: "Words--words!"

"I offer love. I ask nothing in turn but a word or a token--nothing
but--my lady's colors."

She turned and opened her eyes full to my gaze as she had opened them at
our parting in far-off Washington, and I looked down into their depths,
vainly seeking to penetrate the darkness. At last it seemed to me I saw
a gleam far down in the wells of mystery--a glow, faint yet warm, that
seemed to light my way to hope.

Suddenly the glow burst into a flame of golden glory--She was swaying
toward me, a line of pearls showing between her curving lips. But even
as I sought to clasp her in my arms, she eluded me and glided away,
vanishing through the farther window.

Half mad with delight, yet unable to believe my own eyes, I sought to
follow, the blood drumming in my ears from the wild intoxication of my
love. None too soon I heard behind me the sharp call of Don Pedro:
"_Hola, amigo!_ Have you gone deaf, that you do not answer?"

This, then, was why she had eluded me! It was his return which had
robbed me of that moment of all moments. My look as I turned was as
bitter as his was keen. My voice sounded to me like that of another man:
"What! Back so soon, senor?"

"Senor?" he repeated, taken aback by the formal address. "Yet it is as
well, Juan. All our plans are blasted. Hereafter it would seem we are to
be strangers. I have no faith in the promises of that man."

"You do well to distrust him," I said. "I might have foreseen the
outcome of plans in which he was to play a part."

"Whom can we trust in this self-seeking age! I find myself doubting even
the fair promises of your great statesman Burr."

"Of our discredited politician Burr!" I cried. "Don Pedro, he has no
claim upon me, and you have many. Let me tell you, I begin to doubt him,
even as I doubt our pompous General. I have reason to believe that
Colonel Burr plans to take your country from Spain, not for the benefit
of you and your friends, but for his own aggrandizement. He thinks
himself a second Napoleon."

"_Por Dios!_ I see it now. He plots to sell us to Spain, that Spain may
aid his plot to make himself king of your Western country,--king of all
that part which extends from the Alleghanies even here to New Orleans
and north and west to the Pacific. I know; for did he not enter into
negotiations with Marquis de Casa Yrujo?"

"With the Spanish Minister?" I exclaimed.

"With Casa Yrujo, after the death of Pitt deprived him of the hope of
British ships and money."

"So--he is but a crack-brained trickster," I muttered. "We have chased
his rainbows and landed in the mire. This is the end, senor. I go now.
Tomorrow's sun will see me on my way up-river to St. Louis. May you find
brave men enough in your own land to win freedom, without the costly aid
of tricksters!"

"There are others than tricksters that share my plans--true-hearted men
at New Orleans. The Mexican Association stands pledged,--three hundred
and more loyal workers in the cause of my country's freedom."

"Creoles," I said. "You could count upon a hundred of my backwoods
countrymen to do more, should it come to the setting of triggers."

"We shall see. But there are others than creoles in the association.
Already Senor Clark has made two voyages to Vera Cruz, to spy out the
defences. I go now to tell him more. You know something as to the power
of our religious orders. At New Orleans are two s

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