the past.

It was in September of the year 1769--just forty-eight years ago as I
write--that I found myself once again in New Orleans, feeling almost a
stranger to the town, except for the few rough flatboat-men in company
with whom I had floated down the great river. Five years previously,
heartsick and utterly careless of life, I had plunged into the
trackless wilderness stretching in almost unbroken virginity to north
and east, desiring merely to be left alone, that I might in solitude
fight out my first grim battle with despair, saying to myself in all
bitterness of soul that never again would I turn face to southward or
enter the boundaries of Louisiana Province. During those years, beyond
reach of news and the tongue of gossip, I wandered aimlessly from
village to village, ever certain of welcome within the lodges of Creeks
and Shawnees, or farther away amid those little French border towns
dotting the Ohio and the Illinois, constantly feeling how little the
world held of value since both my parents were gone, and this last blow
had fallen. I loved the free, wild life of the warriors with whom I
hunted, and the _voyageurs_ beside whom I camped, and had learned to
distrust my own race; yet no sooner did I chance to stand again beside
the sweeping current of the broad Mississippi, than I was gripped by
the old irresistible yearning, and, although uninspired by either hope
or purpose, drifted downward to the hated Creole town.

I had left it a typical frontier French city, touched alike by the
glamour of reflected civilization and the barbarism of savagery, yet
ever alive with the gayety of that lively, changeable people; I
returned, after those five years of burial in forest depths, to
discover it under the harsh rule of Spain, and outwardly so quiet as to
appear fairly deserted of inhabitants. The Spanish ships of war--I
counted nineteen--lay anchored in the broad river, their prows up
stream, and the gloomy, black muzzles of their guns depressed so as to
command the landing, while scarcely a French face greeted me along the
streets, whose rough stone pavements echoed to the constant tread of
armed soldiers.

Spanish sentries were on guard at nearly every corner. Not a few
halted me with rough questioning, and once I was haled before an
officer, who, hearing my story, and possibly impressed by my
proficiency in his language, was kind enough to provide me with a pass
good within the lines. Yet it proved fa