s--"

Doctor Ward calmly produced a tortoise shell snuffbox from his left-hand
waistcoat pocket, and deliberately took snuff. "You are going to do
nothing of the kind," said he calmly. "You are going to keep your
promise to John Calhoun and to me. Believe me, the business in hand is
vital. You go to Canada now in the most important capacity you have ever
had."

"I care nothing for that," I answered bitterly.

"But you are the agent of your country. You are called to do your
country's urgent work. Here is your trouble over one girl. Would you
make trouble for a million American girls--would you unsettle thousands
and thousands of American homes because, for a time, you have known
trouble? All life is only trouble vanquished. I ask you now to be a man;
I not only expect it, but demand it of you!"

His words carried weight in spite of myself. I began to listen. I took
from his hand the package, looked at it, examined it. Finally, as he sat
silently regarding me, I broke the seal.

"Now, Nicholas Trist," resumed Doctor Ward presently, "there is to be
at Montreal at the date named in these papers a meeting of the directors
of the Hudson Bay Company of England. There will be big men there--the
biggest their country can produce; leaders of the Hudson Bay Company,
many, public men even of England. It is rumored that a brother of Lord
Aberdeen, of the British Ministry, will attend. Do you begin to
understand?"

Ah, did I not? Here, then, was further weaving of those complex plots
which at that time hedged in all our history as a republic. Now I
guessed the virtue of our knowing somewhat of England's secret plans, as
she surely did of ours. I began to feel behind me the impulse of John
Calhoun's swift energy.

"It is Oregon!" I exclaimed at last.

Doctor Ward nodded. "Very possibly. It has seemed to Mr. Calhoun very
likely that we may hear something of great importance regarding the far
Northwest. A missed cog now may cost this country a thousand miles of
territory, a hundred years of history."

Doctor Ward continued: "England, as you know," said he, "is the enemy of
this country as much to-day as ever. She claims she wishes Texas to
remain free. She forgets her own record--forgets the burning cities of
Rohilkhand, the imprisoned princesses of Oudh! Might is her right. She
wants Texas as a focus of contention, a rallying point of sectionalism.
If she divides us, she conquers us. That is all. She wants the chance
for t