r front, where we
could look out over the varied shipping which lay there. My scientific
friend counted one vessel after another, and at last pointed to a gap
in the line.

"Yesterday I wass here," he said, "and I counted all the ships and their
names. The steamer _Modeste_ she lay there. Now she iss gone."

I pulled up suddenly. This was the ship which carried Captain Parke and
his friend Lieutenant Peel, of the British Navy. The secret council at
Montreal was, therefore, apparently ended! There would be an English
land expedition, across Canada to Oregon. Would there be also an
expedition by sea? At least my errand in Montreal, now finished, had not
been in vain, even though it ended in a mystery and a query. But ah! had
I but been less clumsy in that war of wits with a woman, what might I
have learned! Had she not been free to mock me, what might I not have
learned! She was free to mock me, why? Because of Elisabeth. Was it then
true that faith and loyalty could purchase alike faithlessness
and--failure?

CHAPTER XIX

THE GENTLEMAN FROM TENNESSEE

Women distrust men too much in general, and not enough in
particular.--_Philibert Commerson._

Now all the more was it necessary for me and my friend from Oregon to
hasten on to Washington. I say nothing further of the arguments I
employed with him, and nothing of our journey to Washington, save that
we made it hastily as possible. It was now well toward the middle of
April, and, brief as had been my absence, I knew there had been time for
many things to happen in Washington as well as in Montreal.

Rumors abounded, I found as soon as I struck the first cities below the
Canadian line. It was in the air now that under Calhoun there would be
put before Congress a distinct and definite attempt at the annexation of
Texas. Stories of all sorts were on the streets; rumors of the wrath of
Mr. Clay; yet other rumors of interesting possibilities at the coming
Whig and Democratic conventions. Everywhere was that strange, ominous,
indescribable tension of the atmosphere which exists when a great
people is moved deeply. The stern figure of Calhoun, furnishing courage
for a people, even as he had for a president, loomed large in the public
prints.

Late as it was when I reached Washington, I did not hesitate to repair
at once to the residence of Mr. Calhoun; and I took with me as my best
adjutant my strange friend Von Rittenhofen, who, I fancied, might add
d