romance, of unreality, hung
over New Orleans. To us it had an Old World, almost Oriental flavor of
mystery and luxury and pleasure, and we imagined it swathed in the
moisture of the Delta, built of quaint houses, with courts of shining
orange trees and magnolias, and surrounded by flowering plantations of
unimagined beauty. It was most fitting that such a place should be the
seat of dark intrigues against material progress, and this notion lent
added zest to my errand thither. As for Nick, it took no great sagacity
on my part to predict that he would forget Suzanne and begin to look
forward to the Creole beauties of the Mysterious City.

First, there was the fur-laden keel boat in which we travelled, gone
forever now from Western navigation. It had its rude square sail to take
advantage of the river winds, its mast strongly braced to hold the long
tow-ropes. But tow-ropes were for the endless up-river journey, when a
numerous crew strained day after day along the bank, chanting the
voyageurs' songs. Now we were light-manned, two half-breeds and two
Canadians to handle the oars in time of peril, and Captain Xavier, who
stood aft on the cabin roof, leaning against the heavy beam of the long,
curved tiller, watching hawklike for snag and eddy and bar. Within the
cabin was a great fireplace of stones, where our cooking was done, and
bunks set round for the men in cold weather and rainy. But in these fair
nights we chose to sleep on deck.

Far into the night we sat, Nick and I, our feet dangling over the forward
edge of the cabin, looking at the glory of the moon on the vast river, at
the endless forest crown, at the haze which hung like silver dust under
the high bluffs on the American side. We slept. We awoke again as the
moon was shrinking abashed before the light that glowed above these
cliffs, and the river was turned from brown to gold and then to burnished
copper, the forest to a thousand shades of green from crest to the banks
where the river was licking the twisted roots to nakedness. The south
wind wafted the sharp wood-smoke from the chimney across our faces. In
the stern Xavier stood immovable against the tiller, his short pipe
clutched between his teeth, the colors of his new worsted belt made
gorgeous by the rising sun.

"B'jour, Michie," he said, and added in the English he had picked up from
the British traders, "the breakfas' he is ready, and Jean make him good.
Will you have the grace to descen'?"

We