My joy at coming back at this golden season to a country I loved was tempered by news I had heard from Captain Wendell, and which I had discussed with the officers at Fort Harmar.  The Captain himself had broached the subject one cool evening, early in the journey, as we sat over the fire in our little cabin.  He had been telling me about Brandywine, but suddenly he turned to me with a kind of fierce gesture that was natural to the man.

“Ritchie,” he said, “you were in the Revolution yourself.  You helped Clark to capture that country,” and he waved his hand towards the northern shore; “why the devil don’t you tell me about it?”

“You never asked me,” I answered.

He looked at me curiously.

“Well,” he said, “I ask you now.”

I began lamely enough, but presently my remembrance of the young man who conquered all obstacles, who compelled all men he met to follow and obey him, carried me strongly into the narrative.  I remembered him, quiet, self-contained, resourceful, a natural leader, at twenty-five a bulwark for the sorely harried settlers of Kentucky; the man whose clear vision alone had perceived the value of the country north of the Ohio to the Republic, who had compelled the governor and council of Virginia to see it likewise.  Who had guarded his secret from all men, who in the face of fierce opposition and intrigue had raised a little army to follow him—­they knew not where.  Who had surprised Kaskaskia, cowed the tribes of the North in his own person, and by sheer force of will drew after him and kept alive a motley crowd of men across the floods and through the ice to Vincennes.

We sat far into the night, the Captain listening as I had never seen a man listen.  And when at length I had finished he was for a long time silent, and then he sprang to his feet with an oath that woke the sleeping soldiers forward and glared at me.

“My God!” he cried, “it is enough to make a man curse his uniform to think that such a man as Wilkinson wears it, while Clark is left to rot, to drink himself under the table from disappointment, to plot with the damned Jacobins—­”

“To plot!” I cried, starting violently in my turn.

The Captain looked at me in astonishment.

“How long have you been away from Louisville?” he asked.

“It will be a year,” I answered.

“Ah,” said the Captain, “I will tell you.  It is more than a year since Clark wrote Genet, since the Ambassador bestowed on him a general’s commission in the army of the French Republic.”

“A general’s commission!” I exclaimed.  “And he is going to France?” The nation which had driven John Paul Jones from its service was now to lose George Rogers Clark!

“To France!” laughed the Captain.  “No, this is become France enough.  He is raising in Kentucky and in the Cumberland country an army with a cursed, high-sounding name.  Some of his old Illinois scouts—­McChesney, whom you mentioned, for one—­have been collecting bear’s meat and venison hams all winter.  They are going to march on Louisiana and conquer it for the French Republic, for Liberty, Equality—­the Rights of Man, anything you like.”