t a certain projected expedition should chance to come in friendly
touch with the authorities of northern New Spain?"

Having given me food for thought to last me many a day, the Senator
dropped the subject. During all my subsequent months of waiting I could
not induce him to discuss it again.

The time of this conversation was the third week of my stay in
Washington. Being well supplied with funds and on agreeable terms both
socially and professionally with Dr. Frederick May, I had settled down
in my comfortable boarding-house, prepared, if need were, to besiege the
Government throughout the Winter. Should I fail to attain my desired
end, I had only to return West to find a fair practice awaiting me
either at St. Louis or New Orleans. At the worst there would be ample
recompense for my expenditures in the experience of a Winter in the
Federal City.

Even had I been certain of the rejection of the formal application
which, a few days after the dinner at the White House, I had placed on
file in the War Office, I should have prolonged my stay for some time.
Within the week I had taken advantage of the invitations to call
tendered me by the ladies of the President's party. Within another week
I found myself fairly launched in the social swim.

It is not remarkable that a man well under thirty, who has spent many of
his years riding the wilderness traces, should plunge into social
affairs with a zest unknown to the city dweller. To this zest there was
added in my case the keen desire to meet again my haughty Senorita
Alisanda. Yet devote myself as I might to attendance at balls, _fetes_,
dinners, routs, and calls innumerable, it was only to meet with repeated
disappointments. Although, thanks to the kindness of Dr. May and my lady
patronesses, there were few social gatherings, small or great, to which
I was not invited, I failed to gain another meeting with the lady of my
heart. She was not present even at the grand New Year's _fete_ at the
White House, when Mr. Jefferson, as was his custom, received and
entertained all Washington.

That I was desperately in love with the senorita I had soon found myself
compelled to admit. For nothing less than the depth and passion of my
feeling could have prevented me from laughing myself out of it for the
sheer absurdity of such a thing.

Reared among a people whose daughters marry at sixteen and their sons at
nineteen and twenty, I had safely survived my calf-love, had even run