The great organ-like voice of Douglas poured forth a steady stream of talk as we sat together under the wonderful stars of a clear sky, with the soft breeze from the Gulf blowing around us.  Dorothy had fallen asleep.  I got up and looked at her, and finding her resting peacefully I returned to my chair.  It was now near midnight.  We could hear the rattle of cabs on the cobblestones, the cries of strange voices in Spanish; and we saw the lights in the harbor, the lights in the Prado, over the city which was still feasting and playing.  Then Douglas confided to me that he was going to be a candidate for President in this next campaign of 1852.

The prospects were very good, he thought.  If he could get two or three western states to speak out in his favor he would win.  He wondered if I could not go to Iowa for him.  He hoped to have the leading politicians of Illinois as delegates at Baltimore.  He wished me to be a delegate, not that I was a leading politician, but I counted for as much since I was an old friend and a sympathetic adherent.  I told him to use me in any way that would serve him.

Having all these enterprises on his hands he was leaving for Mobile in the morning.  No time to see a bull fight.  “I’ll not say good night to Mrs. Miles,” he said.  “Let her sleep.”  He got up to tiptoe away.  “Good night, Senator,” called Dorothy.  She had aroused at the cessation of our talk.  Douglas returned and in his most gallant manner bade Dorothy good night.  Then he strode away, stepped through the trapdoor, began to descend, disappeared.  I looked up at the great stars.  Then lifting Dorothy into my arms, I carried her to the stairs and on my back to our room.

CHAPTER XLV

Dorothy and I lingered in Havana until we were sure that spring had come to Chicago.  Then we took a boat to New Orleans; and once again I ascended the Mississippi to St. Louis, and thence to Chicago by the Illinois River and the canal.

It was still cool in Chicago, the air fresh and vital.  Great spaces of deep blue stood far back, cool and thrillingly serene; against these spaces the white clouds coming over from the far west and disappearing into havens over the lake and into Michigan.  The lake was roaring to the stiff breezes of the blustering spring.

Chicago was a thrilling spectacle.  The Illinois Central railroad was being built.  The railroad mileage in the country had now risen to more than ten thousand miles.  The short roads with steamboat connections were giving way to the trunk lines.  Boston was now connected by rail with Montreal.  There were nine hundred miles of railroad in Ohio; six hundred in Indiana; about four hundred in Illinois.  The Michigan Central connected Chicago with Detroit.  The Michigan Southern was opened, and the first train from the East had entered Chicago.  A train had started west from St. Louis on the first five miles of the Pacific railroad.  Telegraph lines stuck forth everywhere into the great spaces of the country, like the new shoots of a tree.