ticks clutched tightly in my
hands.

"Here's a Spanish dollar for a couple o' taps, Davy," shouted Jack
Terrell.

"Come on, ye pack of Rebel cutthroats!" yelled a man on the wall.

He was answered by a torrent of imprecations. And so they flung it
back and forth until nightfall, when out comes the same faded-scarlet
officer, holding a letter in his hand, and marches down the street to
Monsieur Bouton's. There would be no storming now, nor any man suffered
to lay fingers on the Hair Buyer.

* * * * *

I remember, in particular, Hamilton the Hair Buyer. Not the fiend my
imagination had depicted (I have since learned that most villains do not
look the part), but a man with a great sorrow stamped upon his face. The
sun rose on that 25th of February, and the mud melted, and one of our
companies drew up on each side of the gate. Downward slid the lion of
England, the garrison drums beat a dirge, and the Hair Buyer marched out
at the head of his motley troops.

Then came my own greatest hour. All morning I had been polishing and
tightening the drum, and my pride was so great as we fell into line that
so much as a smile could not be got out of me. Picture it all: Vincennes
in black and white by reason of the bright day; eaves and gables,
stockade line and capped towers, sharply drawn, and straight above these
a stark flagstaff waiting for our colors; pigs and fowls straying hither
and thither, unmindful that this day is red on the calendar. Ah! here
is a bit of color, too,--the villagers on the side streets to see the
spectacle. Gay wools and gayer handkerchiefs there, amid the joyous,
cheering crowd of thrice-changed nationality.

"Vive les Bostonnais! Vive les Americains! Vive Monsieur le Colonel
Clark! Vive le petit tambour!"

"Vive le petit tambour!" That was the drummer boy, stepping proudly
behind the Colonel himself, with a soul lifted high above mire and
puddle into the blue above. There was laughter amongst the giants behind
me, and Cowan saying softly, as when we left Kaskaskia, "Go it, Davy,
my little gamecock!" And the whisper of it was repeated among the ranks
drawn up by the gate.

Yes, here was the gate, and now we were in the fort, and an empire was
gained, never to be lost again. The Stars and Stripes climbed the staff,
and the folds were caught by an eager breeze. Thirteen cannon thundered
from the blockhouses--one for each colony that had braved a king.

There, in the miry squa