“No one doubts your courage and endurance, Don Francisco,” said Bernardo Galvez.

“My devotion to Spain is the great passion of my life,” continued Alvarez in a gratified tone.

“You know how jealously I have sought to guard against incursions from Kaintock.  The settlements of the Americans there are but two or three year old, yet these people press already upon the Mississippi and threaten His Majesty’s territory of Louisiana.”

“I think that we wander a little from the subject,” said Galvez, “It would be better to state the core of your complaint.”

Alvarez made a deprecating gesture.

“I deemed the preamble necessary to a full understanding of what has followed,” he said.  “When I tell of Kaintock I tell what these men are.  Suffice it now to say that, of their own accord and by their own hands, they have made war upon Spain.  They have stolen away a boat of mine, loaded with arms and stores, they have fired upon His Majesty’s subjects, and one of them has slain a Natchez trailer, a faithful, valuable man in my service.”

When Alvarez spoke of The Cat, he pointed at Shif’less Sol—­he was acting on a hint of Wyatt’s.  The look of Alvarez followed the accusing finger, but the shiftless one rose undaunted.

“That part of what he tells is true,” said Shif’less Sol.  “I slew that Injun—­an’ a meaner face I never saw in fa’r fight.  He slipped upon me in the dark to murder me, an’ thar wuzn’t nothin’ else left fur me to do.”

Freed of his speech and his wrath, the shiftless one sat down again.  Alvarez and the renegade gave him looks of sneering incredulity, but the look of Bernardo Galvez was one of interest and surprise.

“What of the other charges?” he asked, turning to Paul, the spokesman.

The gift of imagination often implies the orator’s tongue and Paul had an inspired moment.  He stood up, his cheeks flushing and his eyes alight, as they always were when he was deeply moved.

“It is true,” he said, “that we took a boat belonging to Captain Alvarez, but it was because he forced us to do it.  It is he who first made war upon Kentucky, not we upon Spain.  I went into his camp upon a peaceful mission.  He seized and held me a prisoner.  I was rescued by my comrades, although they inflicted no harm upon any of the men of Captain Alvarez.  He has sought in every way to destroy us, and because he was the beginner of violence and because he is planning a great treason and war upon Kentucky, we took his boat and have come to New Orleans for the sole purpose of appearing before you.”

Alvarez burst into a sneering laugh and Braxton Wyatt, as a matter of course, imitated him, but Bernardo Galvez asked in a grave tone: 

“What do you mean by a great treason?  No, Don Francisco, wait!  Let him speak!  It is their right.”

“I mean,” said Paul boldly, “that he expects to become Governor General of Louisiana in your place.  It is not the policy of Spain to attack us.  Yet Red Eagle and Yellow Panther, the head chiefs of the powerful Shawnee and Miami nations were in his camp, and he has agreed to help them with Spanish soldiers and Spanish cannon in a raid upon Kentucky.”