class="right">VII.

I meet a Hero 318 VIII. To St. Louis 329 IX. Cherchez la Femme 340 X. The Keel Boat 356 XI. The Strange City 368 XII. Les Îles 383 XIII. Monsieur Auguste entrapped 400 XIV. Retribution 410 BOOK III. Louisiana I. The Rights of Man 434 II. The House above the Falls 441 III. Louisville celebrates 455 IV. Of a Sudden Resolution 465 V. The House of the Honeycombed Tiles 473 VI. Madame la Vicomtesse 483 VII. The Disposal of the Sieur de St. Gré 493 VIII. At Lamarque's 510 IX. Monsieur le Baron 524 X. The Scourge 535 XI. In the Midst of Life 548 XII. Visions, and an Awakening 555 XIII. A Mystery 565 XIV. To Unpathed Waters, Undreamed Shores 575 XV. An Episode in the Life of a Man 589 Afterword 596

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THE CROSSING

BOOK I. THE BORDERLAND

CHAPTER I

The Blue Wall

I was born under the Blue Ridge, and under that side which is blue in the evening light, in a wild land of game and forest and rushing waters. There, on the borders of a creek that runs into the Yadkin River, in a cabin that was chinked with red mud, I came into the world a subject of King George the Third, in that part of his realm known as the province of North Carolina.

The cabin reeked of corn-pone and bacon, and the odor of pelts. It had two shakedowns, on one of which I slept under a bearskin. A rough stone chimney was reared outside, and the fireplace was as long as my father was tall. There was a crane in it, and a bake kettle; and over it great buckhorns held my father's rifle when it was not in use. On other horns hung jerked bear's meat and venison hams, and gourds for drinking cups, and bags of seed, and my father's best hunting shirt; also, in a neglected corner, several articles of woman's attire from pegs. These once belonged to my mother. Among them was a