We looked down upon Kaskaskia from the self-same spot where I had stood on the bluff with Colonel Clark, and the sounds were even then the same,—­the sweet tones of the church bell and the lowing of the cattle.  We found a few Virginians and Pennsylvanians scattered in amongst the French, the forerunners of that change which was to come over this country.  And we spent the night with my old friend, Father Gibault, still the faithful pastor of his flock; cheerful, though the savings of his lifetime had never been repaid by that country to which he had given his allegiance so freely.  Travelling by easy stages, on the afternoon of the second day after leaving Kaskaskia we picked our way down the high bluff that rises above the American bottom, and saw below us that yellow monster among the rivers, the Mississippi.  A blind monster he seemed, searching with troubled arms among the islands for his bed, swept onward by an inexorable force, and on his heaving shoulders he carried great trees pilfered from the unknown forests of the North.

Down in the moist and shady bottom we came upon the log hut of a half-breed trapper, and he agreed to ferry us across.  As for our horses, a keel boat must be sent after these, and Monsieur Gratiot would no doubt easily arrange for this.  And so we found ourselves, about five o’clock on that Saturday evening, embarked in a wide pirogue on the current, dodging the driftwood, avoiding the eddies, and drawing near to a village set on a low bluff on the Spanish side and gleaming white among the trees.  And as I looked, the thought came again like a twinge of pain that Mrs. Temple and Riddle might be there, thinking themselves secure in this spot, so removed from the world and its doings.

“How now, my man of mysterious affairs?” cried Nick, from the bottom of the boat; “you are as puckered as a sour persimmon.  Have you a treaty with Spain in your pocket or a declaration of war?  What can trouble you?”

“Nothing, if you do not,” I answered, smiling.

“Lord send we don’t admire the same lady, then,” said Nick.  “Pierrot,” he cried, turning to one of the boatmen, “il y a des belles demoiselles la, n’est-ce pas?”

The man missed a stroke in his astonishment, and the boat swung lengthwise in the swift current.

“Dame, Monsieur, il y en a,” he answered.

“Where did you learn French, Nick?” I demanded.

“Mr. Mason had it hammered into me,” he answered carelessly, his eyes on the line of keel boats moored along the shore.  Our guides shot the canoe deftly between two of these, the prow grounded in the yellow mud, and we landed on Spanish territory.