This was the wind which Mr. Jefferson had heard.

The Man, being a genius who let go gracefully when he had to, decided between two bad bargains.  He would sell Louisiana to the Americans as a favor; they would be very, very grateful, and they would go on hating George.  Moreover, he would have all the more money with which to fight George.

The inaccessible Man suddenly became accessible.  Nay, he became gracious, smiling, full of loving-kindness, charitable.  Certain dickerings followed by a bargain passed between the American Minister and Monsieur Barbe-Marbois.  Then Mr. Livingston and Mr. Monroe dined with the hitherto inaccessible.  And the Man, after the manner of Continental Personages, asked questions.  Frederick the Great has started this fashion, and many have imitated it.

Louisiana became American at last.  Whether by destiny or chance, whether by the wisdom of Jefferson or the necessity of Napoleon, who can say?  It seems to me, David Ritchie, writing many years after the closing words of the last chapter were penned, that it was ours inevitably.  For I have seen and known and loved the people with all their crudities and faults, whose inheritance it was by right of toil and suffering and blood.

And I, David Ritchie, saw the flags of three nations waving over it in the space of two days.  And it came to pass in this wise.

Rumors of these things which I have told above had filled Kentucky from time to time, and in November of 1803 there came across the mountains the news that the Senate of the United States had ratified the treaty between our ministers and Napoleon.

I will not mention here what my life had become, what my fortune, save to say that both had been far beyond my expectations.  In worldly goods and honors, in the respect and esteem of my fellow-men, I had been happy indeed.  But I had been blessed above other men by one whose power it was to lift me above the mean and sordid things of this world.

Many times in the pursuit of my affairs I journeyed over that country which I had known when it belonged to the Indian and the deer and the elk and the wolf and the buffalo.  Often did she ride by my side, making light of the hardships which, indeed, were no hardships to her, wondering at the settlements which had sprung up like magic in the wilderness, which were the heralds of the greatness of the Republic,—­her country now.

So, in the bright and boisterous March weather of the year 1804, we found ourselves riding together along the way made memorable by the footsteps of Clark and his backwoodsmen.  For I had an errand in St. Louis with Colonel Chouteau.  A subtle change had come upon Kaskaskia with the new blood which was flowing into it:  we passed Cahokia, full of memories to the drummer boy whom she loved.  There was the church, the garrison, the stream, and the little house where my Colonel and I had lived together.  She must see them all, she must hear the story from my lips again; and the telling of it to her gave it a new fire and a new life.