pitiful in
the spectacle presented by the straggling ranks of boatmen and
backwoods farmers. Many wore garments of butternut linsey; others had
on buckskin breeches and coats of bear's pelts; some, in imitation of
Boone and the pioneers, had donned moccasins and wolf's skin caps,
ornamented with foxtails. Some of these picturesque resolutes leaned
on their long rifles, displaying to advantage tomahawk and scalping
knife.

To this nucleus of an expected great army Burr made a brief speech:
"There can be no failure in any enterprise backed up by patriots of
such stock as I see before me. You have the muscle and the sinew, the
blood and the brains, the heart and the soul, of Western heroes. Your
officers, while expecting obedience, give in return their friendship
and protection. We are to share common hardships and dangers, putting
up with things as they are to-day, in certainty of reward to-morrow."

The progress of the unwieldy batteaux was impeded by perils of winter
navigation. Burr exercised his best generalship in directing his men
how to overcome the difficulties they must encounter. He now thought
he knew the river in its two siren moods, its summer singing hour and
its winter rage of hunger for decoyed victims. His royal progress in
Wilkinson's barge he recollected as an event so long ago as to seem an
impression revived in the brain, of a voyage enjoyed in some previous
state of existence.

The flotilla had passed New Madrid, when, one afternoon, Burr standing
near the stern of his boat--amused himself by contemplating a
procession of flying clouds in distorted shapes of dragons,
hippogrifs, witches, and ghosts. The boat was close to shore, skirting
a low bluff, covered with shrubs and trees. A majestic poplar standing
on the river's edge drew the colonel's attention by its noble aspect.
At the very moment when the prow drove opposite the monarch tree, its
lofty top trembled, the towering trunk reeled and fell into the river
with a terrific plunge. The twenty-foot long steering pole, to which
was attached a rudder like the blade of a huge oar, was struck and
splintered by the falling trunk. The seemingly firm-rooted and defiant
poplar had been undermined by the incessant erosion of the flood.

"Good Heaven!" exclaimed Burr, involuntarily. "Am I the tree or the
undercurrent?"

That he had far less to dread from winds, waves, and falling trees
than from ominous storm gatherings of human element, menacing the