at last. Whether by destiny or chance, whether
by the wisdom of Jefferson or the necessity of Napoleon, who can say? It
seems to me, David Ritchie, writing many years after the closing words
of the last chapter were penned, that it was ours inevitably. For I have
seen and known and loved the people with all their crudities and faults,
whose inheritance it was by right of toil and suffering and blood.

And I, David Ritchie, saw the flags of three nations waving over it in
the space of two days. And it came to pass in this wise.

Rumors of these things which I have told above had filled Kentucky from
time to time, and in November of 1803 there came across the mountains
the news that the Senate of the United States had ratified the treaty
between our ministers and Napoleon.

I will not mention here what my life had become, what my fortune, save
to say that both had been far beyond my expectations. In worldly goods
and honors, in the respect and esteem of my fellow-men, I had been happy
indeed. But I had been blessed above other men by one whose power it was
to lift me above the mean and sordid things of this world.

Many times in the pursuit of my affairs I journeyed over that country
which I had known when it belonged to the Indian and the deer and the
elk and the wolf and the buffalo. Often did she ride by my side,
making light of the hardships which, indeed, were no hardships to her,
wondering at the settlements which had sprung up like magic in
the wilderness, which were the heralds of the greatness of the
Republic,--her country now.

So, in the bright and boisterous March weather of the year 1804, we
found ourselves riding together along the way made memorable by the
footsteps of Clark and his backwoodsmen. For I had an errand in St.
Louis with Colonel Chouteau. A subtle change had come upon Kaskaskia
with the new blood which was flowing into it: we passed Cahokia, full
of memories to the drummer boy whom she loved. There was the church, the
garrison, the stream, and the little house where my Colonel and I had
lived together. She must see them all, she must hear the story from my
lips again; and the telling of it to her gave it a new fire and a new
life.

At evening, when the March wind had torn the cotton clouds to shreds,
we stood on the Mississippi's bank, gazing at the western shore, at
Louisiana. The low, forest-clad hills made a black band against the sky,
and above the band hung the sun, a red ball. He wa