endid way to riches and power.

The wavering blue nebulae of intoxicating clouds rise and float, and
fashion their fragrant columns into grander castles of smoke. The
Mississippi Valley is spacious and fertile, Louisiana is a wide
domain, but why limit the scope of enterprise to these? Why not
conquer Mexico, make New Orleans the capital of a magnificent empire,
and possibly annex the southwestern States of the severed Union.
Myself the emperor of the richest realm on the globe, my daughter the
crown princess and prospective queen Theodosia!

Such was the gorgeous dream, the cloud-vision, the unuttered soliloquy
of Aaron Burr, the political bankrupt, as he sat smoking on the deck
of a flatboat, drifting down the devious current of the Ohio.

IV. PLUTARCH BYLE MAKES A NEW ACQUAINTANCE.

The boat had reached a point a few miles above Marietta, when an
incident occurred to interrupt the resumed dialogue on the Spanish
question. A skiff was seen to push off from the Ohio shore, and move
rapidly in the direction of the flatboat, urged on by the long,
powerful oar-strokes of a man who, even in distant perspective,
appeared larger than life-size. Instead of hailing the crew of the
passing vessel, as was customary, the man gave no sign that he was
conscious of the existence of any other craft than his own
fast-gliding skiff. However, he steered straight for the boat, hove
alongside, sprang on board with surprising agility, and, having
fastened his light boat by a chain to a timber of the flat, stalked
deliberately to the stern where Captain Pierce was stationed with
steering-oar.

"I saw you coming down and I thought maybe you'd like to buy some
fresh fish. I've got a thirty-pound cat in the boat; I caught one last
week that weighed one hundred and three pound."

"Don't want any fish. Wouldn't take 'um as a gift."

"You're welcome not to, captain. I suppose a man has a right to hop on
board and ask a civil question. Whose boat is this, anyhow, and where
bound?"

No attention being paid to the question, the nonchalant intruder went
on: "What plunder are you loaded with? Salt or whiskey, or pork or
butter, I reckon? Or maybe you carry passengers? Is it a family of
emigrants? I see two chaps on the upper deck; who are they? What might
your name be, captain?"

The helmsman relieved his irritation by delivering a volley of oaths.

"You 'pear to be out of sorts, captain. Sour stomach, likely. Better
take a dose o