inal ownership was to be decided not on the Pacific, not on
the shoulders of the Blues or the Cascades, but in the east, there at
Washington, after all. The actual issue was in the hands of the God of
Battles, who sometimes uses strange instruments for His ends. It was not
I, it was not Mr. Calhoun, not any of the officers of our government,
who could get Oregon for us. It was the God of Battles, whose instrument
was a woman, Helena von Ritz. After all, this was the chief fruit of my
long journey.

As to the baroness, she had long since left Fort Leavenworth for the
East. I followed still with what speed I could employ. I could not reach
Washington now until long after the first buds would be out and the
creepers growing green on the gallery of Mr. Calhoun's residence. Yes,
green also on all the lattices of Elmhurst Mansion. What had happened
there for me?

CHAPTER XXXI

THE PAYMENT

What man seeks in love is woman; what woman seeks in man is
love.--_Houssaye_.

When I reached Washington it was indeed spring, warm, sweet spring. In
the wide avenues the straggling trees were doing their best to dignify
the city, and flowers were blooming everywhere. Wonderful enough did all
this seem to me after thousands of miles of rude scenery of bare valleys
and rocky hills, wild landscapes, seen often through cold and blinding
storms amid peaks and gorges, or on the drear, forbidding Plains.

Used more, of late, to these wilder scenes, I felt awkward and still
half savage. I did not at once seek out my own friends. My first wish
was to get in touch with Mr. Calhoun, for I knew that so I would most
quickly arrive at the heart of events.

He was away when I called at his residence on Georgetown Heights, but at
last I heard the wheels of his old omnibus, and presently he entered
with his usual companion, Doctor Samuel Ward. When they saw me there,
then indeed I received a greeting which repaid me for many things! This
over, we all three broke out in laughter at my uncouth appearance. I was
clad still in such clothing as I could pick up in western towns as I
hurried on from the Missouri eastward; and I had as yet found no time
for barbers.

"We have had no word from you, Nicholas," said Mr. Calhoun presently,
"since that from Laramie, in the fall of eighteen forty-four. This is in
the spring of eighteen forty-six! Meantime, we might all have been dead
and buried and none of us the wiser. What a country! 'Tis