ards its close;
though as late as spring the national capital was burned by the British,
and a gentleman whom they gaily called "Old Jimmy Madison," temporarily
driven out. But the battle on the little river Thames, in October,
settled matters in the Northwest.

The next April, after Leipsic, Napoleon Bonaparte was banished to the
island of Elba; and Louis XVIII passed from his latest refuge at
Hartwell House in England, to London; where the Prince Regent honored
him and the whole capital cheered him; and thence to Paris where he was
proclaimed king of France. We heard of it in due course, as ships
brought news. I was serving with the American forces.

The world is fluid to a boy. He can do and dare anything. But it hardens
around a man and becomes a wall through which he must cut. I felt the
wall close around me.

In September I was wounded at the battle of Plattsburg on Lake
Champlain. Three men, besides the General and the doctor, and my Oneida,
showed a differing interest in me, while I lay with a gap under my left
arm, in a hospital tent.

First came Count de Chaumont, his face plowed with lines; no longer the
trim gentleman, youthfully easy, and in his full maturity, that he had
been when I first saw him at close range.

He sat down on a camp seat by my cot, and I asked him before he could
speak--

"Where is Madame de Ferrier?"

"She's dead," he answered.

"I don't believe it."

"You're young. I'm going back to France for a while. France will not be
what it was under the Empire. I'm tired of most things, however, and my
holdings here make me independent of changes there."

"What reason have you to think that she is dead?"

"Do you know the Indiana Territory well?"

"The northern part only."

"It happened in what was called the Pigeon Roost settlement at the fork
of the White River. The Kickapoos and Winnebagoes did it. There were
about two dozen people in the settlement."

"I asked how you know these things."

"I have some of the best Indian runners that ever trod moccasins, and
when I set them to scouting, they generally find what I want;--so I know
a great many things."

"But Paul--"

"It's an old custom to adopt children into the tribes. You know your
father, Chief Williams, is descended from a white girl who was a
prisoner. There were about two dozen people in the settlement, men,
women and children. The majority of the children were dashed against
trees. It has been consolation to me t