further recommendations? If only my friend Lieutenant Pike were here to
speak for me!"

"That, sir, is the point. I cannot give you the place, because
Lieutenant Pike has already been assigned to it."

"He!" I cried. "But he is at the sources of the Mississippi!"

"He was, sir, and the Government shall hear of it, to his just credit.
He has explored the headwaters of the river; entered into treaties with
the powerful tribes of the Sioux and Chippewas; hauled down the British
flags at the fur-trading posts, and compelled an agreement of the
Northwest Company to pay us our import duties at Michilmackinac."

"And he has returned!" I muttered.

"In April. By now he is fitting out this present expedition."

I rose and bowed. "Such being the case, Your Excellency, permit me to
wish you good-day."

"One moment," he said, leaning toward me, with a leer which doubtless he
meant for an ingratiating glance. "Has your ambition so narrow a range,
doctor?"

"My ambition?" I inquired.

"Your ambition and your interest in the projects of one who shall at
present go unnamed. I must read and consider what the gentleman has
written to me. Whatever my decision as to--those matters, I cannot give
you what you have asked; but--you will understand--there may be
possibilities--vast possibilities!--a vast Empire, stretching westward
from the Alleghanies--"

"Alleghanies!" I cried, astounded.

At sight of my face, his own turned a mottled gray. He caught at the
whiskey bottle and poured himself out a second drink. Fortified by the
draught, he gasped something about an attack of bilious fever, and
added, with a crafty smile: "You, sir, as a physician, know how this
cursed malaria flies to the head. I have the word Arkansas on my tongue,
yet say Alleghany."

The explanation at once allayed the terrible suspicion which had flashed
into my mind. It was common knowledge throughout the West that this man
had been involved with Innes and other conspirators of the separatist
plots in the nineties. But that he or Colonel Burr or any other man not
insane could dream of such treason to the Republic in these days was a
thought seemingly so preposterous that it needed only the pompous old
fellow's word of explanation to make me banish the suspicion. Yet I
realized that I had had quite enough of his company.

"Sir," I said, "my interest in the affairs of Colonel Burr hinged
entirely upon this question of the expedition. Since the honor of its