d. "Against the better
counsel of Colonel Burr, I was so ill advised as to bring a seaman from
the seaboard to have charge of the water journey."

"A salt-water sailor on an Ohio flat!" I exclaimed.

"The senor forgets that I am a stranger to his forest wilderness."

"Your pardon, Senor Vallois!--Permit me to ride with you. It may be I
can assist you."

"_Na-da-a!_" he protested. "I cannot permit it. You have ridden for
fifteen days at more than post speed. You must first refresh yourself."

"The senor forgets that I am no less eager than himself to arrange for
the river passage. Rest assured I am good for another day in the saddle,
if need be, at your service, senor."

As I wheeled around, and we started for the riverside, he looked me up
and down with a wondering glance.

"_Por Dios!_" he muttered. "I had thought none could ride as ride our
_vaqueros_. You are a man of iron."

"I am the son of my father," I replied. "How other than hard could be
the sons of the men who wrested this Western land from the savages,--who
have driven the Cherokees, Creeks, and Choctaws south of Tennessee, and
pressed back the Northwest Indians to their present fastnesses about the
Great Lakes?"

"It is true," he said. "I have been told no little of that most cruel
and ferocious warfare waged by your savage enemies. I myself know the
fearsomeness of the raids of our equally ferocious Apaches and Yaquis.
Therefore I do not wonder that the men and the sons of the men who met
their painted enemies in this gloomy wilderness should have become not
only hard, but rude and harsh in their manners."

"Given that and the prevailing craze for raw whiskey, and we have--what
we have. Yet they are the men whose fathers met the Indian on his own
ground; who themselves have met the ravaging war parties, and who will
doubtless again meet them,--though I trust not again on the banks of the
Ohio."

"May the Virgin grant that your trust is well founded!" returned the
senor, with deep earnestness. "Yet the British soldiers still hold your
lake forts, and it is rumored that the British agents are ever at work
conspiring with the Northern tribes against the interests of your
people. Let me predict that unless Britain is humbled by the great
Emperor, she will make excuse of your many differences to crush your
Republic and regain these lost colonies."

"Let her try!" I cried. "Let her turn loose her savage allies upon us,
and we will hurl them back i