wful misery and free from shame.

"I send enclosed the diamond ring you gave me in Princeton--the one
you took from my finger in that farmhouse on the Miami, to write
with it on the window-pane your name, dear Aaron, my first love, and
underneath it my own.

"Salome."

The unhappy trifler having reread the reproachful lines, took up the
ring which had fallen upon the table when the letter was unfolded.
There was a small window in the side of the cabin, opening on hinges.
Burr rose, stepped to the rude casement, unfastened the bolt, thrust
his arm out as far as he could reach, holding betwixt his thumb and
finger the sparkling gem, and was about to cast it into the water; but
he checked the impulse, drew back his hand and slipped the love-token
on his little finger.

"Poor Salome!" he murmured, closing the sash. "Foolish Salome! She
thinks she is the cause of my ruin; but she is not. I wish to God I
could say I am not the cause of hers."

The fickle lover, rousing from his remorseful reverie, became the man
of action. His boat was freighted, in part, with military stores,
proof positive of warlike designs. This objective evidence must not
come to the knowledge of judge or militia-man. Burr seized an axe, and
calling one of the boatmen to his assistance, led the way to the main
storage room, where guns and ammunition, packed in chests, lay piled.
The place was closely boarded up, having no openings whatever in the
sides.

"Here, Gilpin, take the axe, while I hold the light. Cut a hole in the
side of the boat, between these two upright braces. Hurry up! Make the
space large enough to let these boxes pass through."

The boatman chopped with lusty strokes and soon hewed an opening
sufficiently long and wide through the plank siding.

"Now, take hold; help lift this, and slide it overboard."

Rapidly the two worked with might and main, casting chest after chest
overboard to sink plumb to the muddy bottom of the Mississippi. By the
time the steersman gave orders for landing on the Arkansas shore, the
telltale cargo had all been unloaded. The innocent vessel was brought
to harbor in a bend and made fast to some friendly trees.

Military officers, acting for the governor of Mississippi Territory,
lay in wait to seize Burr and Blennerhassett. To the governor's
aide-de-camp the chief conspirator said with bitter resentment:

"As to any proj