North of the fated compromise line, west of the admitted slave state of Missouri, lay other rich lands ripe for the plow, ready for Americans who had never paid more than a dollar an acre for land, or for aliens who had never been able to own any land at all.  Kansas and Nebraska, names conceived but not yet born,—­what would they be?  Would the compromise of this last summer of 1850 hold the balances of power even?  Could it save this republic, still young and needy, for yet a time in the cause of peace and growth?  Many devoutly hoped it.  Many devoutly espoused the cause of compromise merely for the sake of gaining time.  As neither of the great political parties of the day filled its ranks from either section, so in both sections there were many who espoused, as many who denied, the right of men to own slaves.  We speak of slavery as the one great question of that day.  It was not and never has been the greatest.  The question of democracy—­that was even then, and it is now, the greatest question.

Here on the deck of the steamer at the little city of Pittsburg, then gateway of the West, there appeared men of purposes and beliefs as mixed as this mixed country from which they came.  Some were pushing out into what now is known as Kansas, others going to take up lands in Missouri.  Some were to pass south to the slave country, others north to the free lands; men of all sorts and conditions, many men, of many minds, that was true, and all hurrying into new lands, new problems, new dangers, new remedies.  It was a great and splendid day, a great and vital time, that threshold-time, when our western traffic increased so rapidly and assuredly that steamers scarcely could be built rapidly enough to accommodate it, and the young rails leaped westward at a speed before then unknown in the world.

Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers, of errand not wholly obvious to their fellows, yet of such sort as to call into query alike the nature of their errand and their own relations.  It is easily earned repetition to state that Josephine St. Auban’s was a presence not to be concealed.  Even such a boat as the Mount Vernon offered a total deck space so cramped as to leave secrecy or privacy well out of the question, even had the motley and democratic assemblage of passengers been disposed to accord either.  Yet there was something in the appearance of this young woman and her companion which caused all the heterogeneous groups of humanity to make way for them, as presently they approached the gang-plank.

Apparently they were not unexpected.  The ship’s clerks readily led the way to apartments which had been secured in advance.  Having seen to the luggage of his charges, whom he disposed in a good double state-room, the leader of the party repaired to his own quarters.  Tarrying no longer than to see his own luggage safe aboard, he commanded one of the men to fetch him to the office of the captain.