e most important episodes herein are of history,--so romantic was
the life of that time and region. The marriage is almost literally
a matter of record.

A good part of the author's life has been spent among the children
of those old raiders--Yankee and Canadian--of the north and south
shores of the big river. Many a tale of the camp and the night
ride he has heard in the firelight of a winter's evening; long
familiar to him are the ruins of a rustic life more splendid in its
day than any north of Virginia. So his color is not all of books,
but of inheritance and of memory as well.

The purpose of this tale is to extend acquaintance with the plain
people who sweat and bled and limped and died for this Republic of
ours. Darius, or "D'ri" as the woods folk called him, was a
pure-bred Yankee, quaint, rugged, wise, truthful; Ramon had the
hardy traits of a Puritan father, softened by the more romantic
temperament of a French mother. They had no more love of fighting
than they had need of it.

CONTENTS

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
X.
XI.
XII.
XIII.
XIV.
XV.
XVI.
XVII.
XVIII.
XIX.
XX.
XXI.
XXII.
XXIII.
XXIV.
XXV.
XXVI.
XXVII.

[Transcriber's Note: The chapters in the original text were numbered,
but had no titles.]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

LOUISE

D'RI AND I

I COULD NOT TELL WHICH OF THE TWO GIRLS I LOVED THE BETTER

HE WOULD HAVE FOUGHT TO THE DEATH IF I HAD BUT GIVEN HIM WORD

"COME, NOW, MY PRETTY PRISONER"

"WE 'LL TEK CARE O' THE OL' BRIG"

WE WERE BOTH NEAR BREAKING DOWN

"THEN I LEAVE ALL FOR YOU"

INTRODUCTION

From a letter of Captain Darius Hawkins, U. S. A., introducing
Ramon Bell to the Comte de Chaumont:--

"MY DEAR COUNT: I commend to your kind offices my young friend
Ramon Bell, the son of Captain Bell, a cavalry officer who long ago
warmed his sword in the blood of the British on many a
battle-field. The young man is himself a born soldier, as brave as
he is tall and handsome. He has been but a month in the army, yet
I have not before seen a man who could handle horse and sword as if
they were part of him. He is a gentleman, also, and one after your
own heart, I know, my dear count, you will do everything you can to
further the work intrusted to him.

"Your obedient servant,
"DARIUS HAWKINS."

From a letter of Joseph Bonaparte, Comte de Survilliers,
intro