_Americano_ Commander-in-Chief, General Wilkinson, had
prevented _los hereticos_ from breaking their sacred pledge by crossing
the Sabine River into the disputed territory. Risking the anger of the
hypocritical Jefferson, the brave Wilkinson had met the treacherous and
ferocious Burr in a terrific battle; had defeated the desperadoes and
either slain or captured the would-be conqueror of the domains of His
Most Catholic Majesty, King Ferdinand.

So the account ran--a bushel of chaff heaped about a few scant grains of
fact. Yet even out of these garbled and fantastic details of an
evidently panic-stricken Spanish scribe, we could extract at least an
inkling of the truth. There could be no doubt that Colonel Burr had
actually embarked upon one or more of his venturesome enterprises, and
that there had ensued more or less public agitation, if not an armed
conflict.

To my wider knowledge of the Colonel's schemes many things were clear
which puzzled and bewildered my friend, and I was not altogether
surprised to see by Malgares's look that he understood the situation
nearly as well as myself. When, however, at the first opportunity, I
sought to obtain an intimation that he had been a sharer in the Mexican
end of the great project, he avoided the inquiry with his usual tactful
reserve.

For my own part, I concluded that my worst suspicions regarding the
treasonable intentions of Colonel Burr were all too true. Evidently
relying upon Wilkinson to force hostilities on the Texas border, he had
planned to sweep down the Ohio and the Mississippi, with the rallying
cry of "War with Spain!" to bring the frontiersmen flocking after him in
a vast army. With all the loyal-hearted marching to the conquest of
Mexico under Wilkinson and Jackson, it would then have been a simple
matter to seize New Orleans, declare a separation of the West from the
East, and appeal to the States and Territories west of the Alleghanies
to join in creating an empire which should extend westward to the far
distant Pacific and south to remote Panama.

That the West was, and for years had been, far too loyal to listen to
the traitorous proposal, was not the question. The point was, that, had
Wilkinson supported the arch-plotter so far as the seizure of New
Orleans, the result would have been a bloody internecine war among our
people, with France and England alike gloating upon our dissensions, and
waiting, eager-fingered, to tear us asunder at the first op