d her hands
together nervously. I could endure the suspense no longer.

"It is best for me to go," I said. She made no reply. "I am sorry that I
have made you suffer. Let me erase everything by withdrawing what I have
said to you." "You can't," said Dorothy. "You are Reverdy's friend; you
know how I love him. You couldn't suppose that anything that has
affected you so deeply would not affect him and therefore me. I never
believed that I could be so unhappy. You are going and that leaves me to
think and think."

My heart took fire again. I stretched my hand to take Dorothy's. She
removed hers gently out of reach. "Go your way, my friend," she said.
"Later I may write you. You are only a boy yet ... and many things may
happen. But be sure that I suffer, and that I remember and that I need
help."

She arose and preceded me back to the house. Mrs. Clayton seemed to
direct her influence toward smoothing our way. But nothing could be
done. I had met defeat and I wished to depart.

The next day I was on the Ohio but not bound for St. Louis. I had
decided to see New Orleans. Change of scene might allay my thoughts.

CHAPTER XVIII

I did not tell Dorothy where I was going. I left her to suppose that I
was returning to Jacksonville.

In passing to the boat landing I stumbled and fell, bruising myself
painfully. I was hurrying to get away and in my haste and sorrow I was
oblivious of my surroundings. As I limped along on the deck, I was
approached by a kindly man who offered me some ointment which he said
was made from the oil that escaped over the surface of the water in the
salt wells of Kentucky and elsewhere, in spite of anything that could be
done and much to the inconvenience of the business of getting salt. This
man said that the oil was being subjected to experiments for use in
illumination. As an ointment it was magical, and in a few days my
lameness disappeared.

Both on the Ohio and the Mississippi we saw flatboats tied together
heaped with coal, which had been loaded into them from the sides of the
hills of the Alleghanies and elsewhere. They were being floated down to
New Orleans. I had found coal in several places on my land in Illinois.
Sometimes one could dig it out of the surface of the ground. But no
expeditious means were yet in use in Illinois in mining it.

The Mississippi is a wonder scene to me. The river is full of islands
and the boat winds about in endless turns of the stream. There are