, for some hours, of
his presence in Vincennes, and had prepared herself to meet him
courageously and with maidenly reserve.

There is no safety, however, where Love lurks. Neither Beverley nor
Alice was as much agitated at Hamilton, yet they both forgot, what he
remembered, that a hundred grim frontier soldiers were looking on.
Hamilton had his personal and official dignity to sustain, and he
fairly did it, under what a pressure of humiliating and surprising
circumstances we can fully comprehend. Not so with the two young
people, standing as it were in a suddenly bestowed and incomparable
happiness, on the verge of a new life, each to the other an unexpected,
unhoped-for resurrection from the dead. To them there was no universe
save the illimitable expanse of their love. In that moment of meeting,
all that they had suffered on account of love was transfused and poured
forth,--a glowing libation for love's sake,--a flood before which all
barriers broke.

Father Beret was looking on with a strange fire in his eyes, and what
he feared would happen, did happen. Alice let the flag fall at
Hamilton's feet, when Beverley came near her smiling that great, glad
smile, and with a joyous cry leaped into his outstretched arms.

Jean snatched up the fallen banner and ran to Colonel Clark with it.
Two minutes later it was made fast and the halyard began to squeak
through the rude pulley at the top of the pole. Up, up, climbed the gay
little emblem of glory, while the cannon crashed from the embrasures of
the blockhouse hard by, and outside the roar of voices redoubled.
Thirteen guns boomed the salute, though it should have been
fourteen,--the additional one for the great Northwestern Territory,
that day annexed to the domain of the young American Republic. The flag
went up at old Vincennes never to come down again, and when it reached
its place at the top of the staff, Beverley and Alice stood side by
side looking at it, while the sun broke through the clouds and flashed
on its shining folds, and love unabashed glorified the two strong young
faces.

CHAPTER XXI

SOME TRANSACTIONS IN SCALPS

History would be a very orderly affair, could the dry-as-dust
historians have their way, and doubtless it would be thrillingly
romantic at every turn if the novelists were able to control its
current. Fortunately neither one nor the other has much influence, and
the result, in the long run, is that most novels are shockingly tame,