r many leagues. Among my friends I
am addressed as Don Pedro."

"And I as Alisanda," added the senorita gayly. Her uncle raised his
brows, but said nothing. She called toward the inner door,
"Chita!--Chita!"

The woman appeared, and at a sign from her mistress, crossed toward me.

"Dr. Robinson, you have not before met my faithful Chita, because she
was ill and had to be left in Philadelphia when we went to Washington.
Chita, this is he of whom I spoke."

The woman courtesied with a grace which belied her stout figure, her
beady eyes riveted upon my face. When she straightened I ventured to
surmise from the half smile which hovered about her hard mouth that if
she was not already well-disposed toward me, she was at least not an
enemy.

"It is well," said Don Pedro.

"All well--and ready to cast off," I added. "If the senorita--"

"Alisanda!" she corrected, with a flashing glance.

"If--Alisanda is quite warm, she may wish to witness the event."

"I will join you immediately," she responded.

With that I led Don Pedro out to the steer-oar and showed him how to
hold it to aid in bringing us about. As our craft lay in a slow eddy, I
had no difficulty in casting off. The townfolk and shipyard workers were
far too busy with the rush of the Spring shipping to give heed to so
common an event as the departure of a flat. But it was enough to call
out all my skill and strength that I thrust off under the eyes of
Alisanda.

A side shove from the prow, and a rear thrust from the inner corner of
the stern as the prow swung out, cleared us from the wharf and sent us
gliding out aslant the eddy. The river was in such full flood that the
bottom, even alongside the wharf, was beyond poling depth. But I called
Don Pedro to aid me with the sweeps, and a few long strokes carried us
out into the swirling current of midstream.

Our voyage had begun. We were afloat in the grasp of the river, and for
the time need only to fold our arms and gaze at the changing vistas of
forest-clad hills on either bank, past which the current swept us along
at more than post speed.

Before the noon meal we had passed in turn the important shipping town
of McKeesport, at the mouth of the Youghiogheny, and the hillside ravine
near Turtle Creek, where, within a gunshot of the river bank, the
British General Braddock met with his disastrous defeat at the hands of
the French and Indians, and where he whose life was to prove so precious
to his count