ck negro with a very squat nose, alert and
talkative save when Nick turned on him. Benjy had been born at Temple
Bow; he worshipped his master and all that pertained to him, and he
showered upon me all the respect and attention that was due to a member
of the Temple family. For this I was very grateful. It would have been
an easier journey had we taken a boat down to Fort Massac, but such a
proceeding might have drawn too much attention to our expedition. I
have no space to describe that trip overland, which reminded me at every
stage of the march against Kaskaskia, the woods, the chocolate streams,
the coffee-colored swamps flecked with dead leaves,--and at length the
prairies, the grass not waist-high now, but young and tender, giving
forth the acrid smell of spring. Nick was delighted. He made me recount
every detail of my trials as a drummer boy, or kept me in continuous
spells of laughter over his own escapades. In short, I began to realize
that we were as near to each other as though we had never been parted.

We looked down upon Kaskaskia from the self-same spot where I had stood
on the bluff with Colonel Clark, and the sounds were even then the
same,--the sweet tones of the church bell and the lowing of the cattle.
We found a few Virginians and Pennsylvanians scattered in amongst the
French, the forerunners of that change which was to come over this
country. And we spent the night with my old friend, Father Gibault,
still the faithful pastor of his flock; cheerful, though the savings of
his lifetime had never been repaid by that country to which he had given
his allegiance so freely. Travelling by easy stages, on the afternoon of
the second day after leaving Kaskaskia we picked our way down the high
bluff that rises above the American bottom, and saw below us that yellow
monster among the rivers, the Mississippi. A blind monster he seemed,
searching with troubled arms among the islands for his bed, swept onward
by an inexorable force, and on his heaving shoulders he carried great
trees pilfered from the unknown forests of the North.

Down in the moist and shady bottom we came upon the log hut of a
half-breed trapper, and he agreed to ferry us across. As for our horses,
a keel boat must be sent after these, and Monsieur Gratiot would no
doubt easily arrange for this. And so we found ourselves, about five
o'clock on that Saturday evening, embarked in a wide pirogue on the
current, dodging the driftwood, avoiding t