. A torment? Should you call the flowers that change in
sweetness as we ride along through the wood a torment? Let them beware
of me! I am no respecter of fortune when it comes to a pretty face, my
friend. It is mine if it is here, and if I may kiss it--don't rebuke
me, Merne! I am full of the joy of life. Woman--the nearest woman--to
call her a torment! And you a soldier! I don't blame them. Torment
you? Yes, they will, so long as you allow it. Then don't allow it!"

"You preach very well, Will. Of course, I know you don't practise what
you preach--who does?"

"Well, perhaps! But, seriously, why take life so hard, Merne? Why
don't you relax--why don't you swim with the current for a time? We
live but once. Tell me, do you think there was but one woman made for
each of us men in all the world? My faith, if that be true, I have had
more than my share, I fear, as I have passed along! But even when it
comes to marrying and settling down to hoeing an acre of corn-land and
raising a shoat or two for the family--tell me, Merne, what woman does
a man marry? Doesn't he marry the one at hand--the one that is ready
and waiting? Do you think fortune would always place the one woman in
the world ready for the one man at the one time, just when the hoeing
and the shoat-raising was to the fore? It is absurd, man! Nature dares
not take such chances--and does not."

Lewis did not answer his friend's jesting argument.

"Listen, Merne," Clark went on. "The memory of a kiss is better than
the memory of a tear. No, listen, Merne! The print of a kiss is sweet
as water of a spring when you are athirst. And the spring shows none
the worse for the taste of heaven it gave you. Lips and water
alike--they tell no tales. They are goods the gods gave us as part of
life. But the great thirst--the great thirst of a man for power, for
deeds, for danger, for adventure, for accomplishment--ah, that is
ours, and that is harder to slake, I am thinking! A man's deeds are
his life. They tell the tale."

"His deeds! Yes, you are right, they do, indeed, tell the tale. Let us
hope the reckoning will stand clean at last."

"Merne, you are a soldier, not a preacher."

"Will, you are neither--you are only a boy!"

CHAPTER XIV

THE RENT IN THE ARMOR

Aaron Burr came to St. Louis in the spring of 1804 as much in
desperation as with definite plans. Matters were going none too well
for him. All the time he was getting advices from the lower countr