f his skiff against the river bank. Then plunging his right
hand into the water, he rubbed and scrubbed it vigorously, using sand
for soap.

"Dog-fennel and skunk-cabbage! I don't believe there's water enough in
the Ohio River to take out the wicked smell of that murderer's hand!"

V. IN THE LADIES' BOWER.

The Byle episode put Burr in a merry mood, quite diverting his
thoughts from Mexico and the future to the happenings of the hour. A
reckless spirit of frivolity took possession of him, and he astonished
his fellow traveller by the ebullience of his humor and the play of
his extravagant fancy. He mimicked the speech and grotesque gestures
of Plutarch, and laughed over the ludicrous _finale_ of the encounter
with that free-spoken genius.

"Mr. B-y-l-e, Byle, is exquisite! It is worth coming a thousand miles
by stage coach and flatboat, to meet so droll an adventure with such a
nondescript amphibian. He has a prodigious gift of gab, plain and
ornamental. Did you take note of his metaphors? 'Rose of Sharon' is
good.--By the way, we can't be far from the Bower of Bliss. We must
tie up our Argo there as Brackenridge recommended, and go in quest of
those exotic and visionary Blennerhassetts."

"What do you know of them, colonel, further than we learned in
Pittsburg?"

"But little. They stopped in New York for a few months, after arriving
in this country, ten or twelve years ago. The man is a barrister,
educated in Dublin. He claims to be a descendant of King John. The
lady is a daughter of the governor of the Isle of Wight, and a
granddaughter of the late Brigadier-General Agnew, who was killed in
the battle of Germantown."

"A British general, you say?"

"Oh, certainly--a violent royalist."

While the gentlemen were thus chatting, the boat drifted lazily on,
following the windings of the current. The broad Ohio glowed like
liquid gold, in the slant sunshine of mid-afternoon, and the interplay
of shade and color, shifting from object to object along the shores,
gave the varied scenery an ethereal beauty almost supernatural. The
distant, forest-crowned uplands, seen dimly in the direction toward
which the ark floated, looked as unsubstantial as clouds. A
delightful, spicy fragrance exhaled from the blossomy thickets which
fringed the river margin.

Burr took a deep breath, and began to hum a half-remembered verse
advising youth to "gather the rose whiles yet is prime."

"Yonder is Bacchus Island," said