ality of the forest and an extra blanket if you
wish it."

"It's a hospitality to which I'm used," replied Paul, "and I don't need
the extra blanket, although I thank you for the offer."

He took his own blanket from the little roll at his back, wrapped himself
in it, pillowed his head on the knoll, and closed his eyes. Francisco
Alvarez looked at him for some minutes, and could not tell whether he was
sleeping or waking, but he thought that he slept. His long, regular
breathing and the expression of his face, as peaceful as that of a little
child, indicated It.

The night grew chillier. The great stars remained pale and cold, and the
forest continued to whine, as that strange, wandering breeze slipped
through the leaves. Francisco Alvarez of the sunny plains wished that it
would stop. It got upon his nerves, and the feeling it gave him was
singularly like that of an evil conscience. He saw his men fall to sleep
one by one, and he heard their heavy breathing. Braxton Wyatt also wrapped
himself in his blanket and soon slumbered. The fire sank, the coals
crumbled, and with soft little hisses, fell together. The circling rim of
darkness crept up closer and closer, and the trunks of the trees became
ghostly in the shadows.

Alvarez saw his sentinels at either side of the camp, to right and left,
walking back and forth, and he knew also that they would watch well. Time
passed. The night darkened and then a wan moon came out, casting a
ghostly, gray shadow over the measureless black forest. The great stars,
pale and cold, danced in a dusky blue. Faint moans came out of the depths
of the wilderness, as a stray wind wandered here and there among the
leaves. Francisco Alvarez, resolute and self contained though he was,
could not sleep. He had taken a bold step in holding the messenger of
peace, and, although one might do much a thousand wilderness miles from
the seat of his authority, he was nevertheless anxious to have the full
support of Bernardo Galvez, the Spanish governor of Louisiana.

Royalist to the marrow, he wished the colonists to be defeated by their
mother country, and he wished, moreover, that Spain might make secure a
title to all the immense regions in the valley. If he could skillfully
commit Spain to a quarrel with the settlers much might be done for the
cause in which his heart was enlisted. He foresaw the truth of Paul's
warning that in a little while nothing could uproot the settlers in
Kentucky. A blow