terly. "But come,
now, I want more news about your trip to Montreal. What have you done?"

So now, till far towards dawn of the next day, we sat and talked. I put
before him full details of my doings across the border. He sat silent,
his eye betimes wandering, as though absorbed, again fixed on me, keen
and glittering.

"So! So!" he mused at length, when I had finished, "England has started
a land party for Oregon! Can they get across next fall, think you?"

"Hardly possible, sir," said I. "They could not go so swiftly as the
special fur packets. Winter would catch them this side of the Rockies.
It will be a year before they can reach Oregon."

"Time for a new president and a new policy," mused he.

"The grass is just beginning to sprout on the plains, Mr. Calhoun," I
began eagerly.

"Yes," he nodded. "God! if I were only young!"

"I am young, Mr. Calhoun," said I. "Send _me!_"

"Would you go?" he asked suddenly.

"I was going in any case."

"Why, how do you mean?" he demanded.

I felt the blood come to my face. "'Tis all over between Miss Elisabeth
Churchill and myself," said I, as calmly as I might.

"Tut! tut! a child's quarrel," he went on, "a child's quarrel! `Twill
all mend in time."

"Not by act of mine, then," said I hotly.

Again abstracted, he seemed not wholly to hear me.

"First," he mused, "the more important things"--riding over my personal
affairs as of little consequence.

"I will tell you, Nicholas," said he at last, wheeling swiftly upon me.
"Start next week! An army of settlers waits now for a leader along the
Missouri. Organize them; lead them out! Give them enthusiasm! Tell them
what Oregon is! You may serve alike our party and our nation. You can
not measure the consequences of prompt action sometimes, done by a man
who is resolved upon the right. A thousand things may hinge on this. A
great future may hinge upon it."

It was only later that I was to know the extreme closeness of his
prophecy.

Calhoun began to pace up and down. "Besides her land forces," he
resumed, "England is despatching a fleet to the Columbia! I doubt not
that the _Modeste_ has cleared for the Horn. There may be news waiting
for you, my son, when you get across!

"While you have been busy, I have not been idle," he continued. "I have
here another little paper which I have roughly drafted." He handed me
the document as he spoke.

"A treaty--with Texas!" I exclaimed.

"The first draft, yes. We have si