here, there,
yonder, until by slowly arriving increments I gathered up a large
amount of valuable facts, which when I came to compare them with the
history of Clark's conquest of the Wabash Valley, fitted amazingly well
into certain spaces heretofore left open in that important yet sadly
imperfect record.

You will find that I was not so wrong in suspecting that Emile Jazon,
mentioned in the Roussillon letter, was a brother of Jean Jazon and a
famous scout in the time of Boone and Clark. He was, therefore, a
kinsman of yours on the maternal side, and I congratulate you. Another
thing may please you, the success which attended my long and patient
research with a view to clearing up the connection between Alice
Roussillon's romantic life, as brokenly sketched in M. Roussillon's
letter, and the capture of Vincennes by Colonel George Rogers Clark.

Accept, then, this book, which to those who care only for history will
seem but an idle romance, while to the lovers of romance it may look
strangely like the mustiest history. In my mind, and in yours I hope,
it will always be connected with a breezy summer-house on a headland of
the Louisiana gulf coast, the rustling of palmetto leaves, the fine
flash of roses, a tumult of mocking-bird voices, the soft lilt of
Creole patois, and the endless dash and roar of a fragrant sea over
which the gulls and pelicans never ceased their flight, and beside
which you smoked while I dreamed.

MAURICE THOMPSON.
JULY, 1900.

Contents

I. Under the Cherry Tree
II. A Letter from Afar
III. The Rape of the Demijohn
IV. The First Mayor of Vincennes
V. Father Gibault
VI. A Fencing Bout
VII. The Mayor's Party
VIII. The Dilemma of Captain Helm
IX. The Honors of War
X. M. Roussillon Entertains Colonel Hamilton
XI. A Sword and a Horse Pistol
XII. Manon Lescaut, and a Rapier-Thrust
XIII. A Meeting in the Wilderness
XIV. A Prisoner of Love
XV. Virtue in a Locket
XVI. Father Beret's Old Battle
XVII. A March through Cold Water
XVIII. A Duel by Moonlight
XIX. The Attack
XX. Alice's Flag
XXI. Some Transactions in Scalps
XXII. Clark Advises Alice
XXIII. And So It Ended

Alice of Old Vincennes

CHAPTER I

UNDER THE CHERRY TREE

Up to the days of Indiana's early statehood, probably as late as 1825,
there stood, in what is now the beautiful little city of Vincennes on
the Wabash, the decay