one
accustomed to attention from others. A servant in the costume of an
English groom rode at a short distance behind him.

The second man was lighter, straight and trim of figure, with an
erectness and exactness of carriage which marked him as a soldier at
some part of his life. He was clad with extreme neatness, well booted
also, and sat his mount with the nonchalance of the trained horseman.
His own garb and face showed not the slightest proof that he had been
riding hard.

Indeed, he seemed one whom no condition or circumstance could deprive
of a cool immaculateness. He was a man to be marked in any
company--especially so by the peculiar brilliance of his full, dark
eye, which had a piercing, searching glint of its own; an eye such as
few men have owned, and under whose spell man or woman might easily
melt to acquiescence with the owner's mind.

He sat his horse with a certain haughtiness as well as carelessness.
His chin seemed long and firm, and his lofty forehead--indeed, his
whole air and carriage--discovered him the man of ambition that he
really was. For this was no other than Aaron Burr, Vice-President of
the United States, whose name was soon to be on the lips of all. He
had lately come to Washington with the Jefferson administration.

This gentleman now reined up his horse as he caught sight of the young
man approaching. His older companion also halted. Burr raised his hat.

"Ah, Captain Lewis!" he said in a voice of extraordinary sweetness,
yet of power. "You also have caught the secret of this climate, eh?
You ride in the early morning--I do not wonder. You are Virginian, and
so know the heats of Washington. I fancy you recognize Mr. Merry," he
added, his glance turning from one to the other.

The young Virginian bowed to both gentlemen.

"I have persuaded his excellency the minister from Great Britain to
ride with us on one of our Washington mornings. He has been good
enough to say--to say--that he enjoys it!"

Burr turned a quick glance upon the heavier figure at his side, with a
half smile of badinage on his own face. Lewis bowed again, formally,
and Anthony Merry answered with equal politeness and ceremony.

"Yes," said the envoy, "to be sure I recall the young man. I met him
in the anteroom at the President's house."

Meriwether Lewis cast him a quick glance, but made no answer. He knew
well enough the slighting estimate in which everything at Washington
was held by this minister accredit