f Van Zandt's which stood in our way. By playing one intrigue
against another, we have won thus far. We must go on winning!"

He paced up and down the room, one hand smiting the other. "Let England
whistle now!" he exclaimed exultantly. "We shall annex Texas, in full
view, indeed, of all possible consequences. There can be no
consequences, for England has no excuse left for war over Texas. I only
wish the situation were as clear for Oregon."

"There'll be bad news for our friend Senor Yturrio when he gets back to
his own legation!" I ventured.

"Let him then face that day when Mexico shall see fit to look to us for
aid and counsel. We will build a mighty country _here_, on _this_
continent!"

"Mr. Pakenham is accredited to have certain influence in our Senate."

"Yes. We have his influence exactly weighed. Yet I rejoice in at least
one thing--one of his best allies is not here."

"You mean Senor Yturrio?"

"I mean the Baroness von Ritz. And now comes on that next nominating
convention, at Baltimore."

"What will it do?" I hesitated.

"God knows. For me, I have no party. I am alone! I have but few friends
in all the world"--he smiled now--"you, my boy, as I said, and Doctor
Ward and a few women, all of whom hate each other."

I remained silent at this shot, which came home to me; but he smiled,
still grimly, shaking his head. "Rustle of silk, my boy, rustle of
silk--it is over all our maps. But we shall make these maps! Time shall
bear me witness."

"Then I may start soon for Oregon?" I demanded.

"You shall start to-morrow," he answered.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE WHOA-HAW TRAIL

There are no pleasures where women are not.
--Marie de Romba.

How shall I tell of those stirring times in such way that readers who
live in later and different days may catch in full their flavor? How
shall I write now so that at a later time men may read of the way
America was taken, may see what America then was and now is, and what
yet, please God! it may be? How shall be set down that keen zest of a
nation's youth, full of ambition and daring, full of contempt for
obstacles, full of a vast and splendid hope? How shall be made plain
also that other and stronger thing which so many of those days have
mentioned to me, half in reticence--that feeling that, after all, this
fever of the blood, this imperious insistence upon new lands, had under
it something more than human selfis