ALICE'S FLAG
Governor Hamilton received the note sent him by Colonel Clark and
replied to it with curt dignity; but his heart was quaking. As a
soldier he was true to the military tradition, and nothing could have
induced him to surrender his command with dishonor.
"Lieutenant-Governor Hamilton," he wrote to Clark, "begs leave to
acquaint Colonel Clark that he and his garrison are not disposed to be
awed into any action unworthy of British subjects."
"Very brave words," said Helm, when Hamilton read the note to him, "but
you'll sing a milder tune before many minutes, or you and your whole
garrison will perish in a bloody heap. Listen to those wild yells!
Clark has enough men to eat you all up for breakfast. You'd better be
reasonable and prudent. It's not bravery to court massacre."
Hamilton turned away without a word and sent the message; but Helm saw
that he was excited, and could be still further wrought up.
"You are playing into the hands of your bitterest enemies, the
frog-eaters," he went on. "These creoles, over whom you've held a hot
poker all winter, are crazy to be turned loose upon you; and you know
that they've got good cause to feel like giving you the extreme
penalty. They'll give it to you without a flinch if they get the
chance. You've done enough."
Hamilton whirled about and glared ferociously.
"Helm, what do you mean?" he demanded in a voice as hollow as it was
full of desperate passion.
The genial Captain laughed, as if he had heard a good joke.
"You won't catch any fish if you swear, and you look blasphemous," he
said with the lightness of humor characteristic of him at all times.
"You'd better say a prayer or two. Just reflect a moment upon the awful
sins you have committed and--"
A crash of coalescing volleys from every direction broke off his
levity. Clark was sending his response to Hamilton's lofty note. The
guns of freedom rang out a prophecy of triumph, and the hissing bullets
clucked sharply as they entered the solid logs of the walls or whisked
through an aperture and bowled over a man. The British musketeers
returned the fire as best they could, with a courage and a stubborn
coolness which Helm openly admired, although he could not hide his
satisfaction whenever one of them was disabled.
"Lamothe and his men are refusing to obey orders," said Farnsworth a
little later, hastily approaching Hamilton, his face flushed and a
gleam of hot anger in his eyes. "They're in a nasty mood; I can do
nothing with them; they have not fired a shot."
"Mutiny?" Hamilton demanded.
"Not just that. They say they do not wish to fire on their kinsmen and
friends. They are all French, you know, and they see their cousins,
brothers, uncles and old acquaintances out there in Clark's rabble. I
can do nothing with them."
"Shoot the scoundrels, then!"
"It will be a toss up which of us will come out on top if we try that.
Besides, if we begin a fight inside, the Americans will make short work
of us."
"Well, what in hell are we to do, then?"
"Oh, fight, that's all," said Farnsworth apathetically turning to a
small loop-hole and leveling a field glass through it. "We might make a
rush from the gates and stampede them," he presently added. Then he
uttered an exclamation of great surprise.
"There's Lieutenant Beverley out there," he exclaimed.
"You're mistaken, you're excited," Hamilton half sneeringly remarked,
yet not without a shade of uneasiness in his expression. "You forget,
sir."
"Look for yourself, it's easily settled," and Farnsworth proffered the
glass. "He's there, to a certainty, sir."
"I saw Beverley an hour ago," said Helm. "I knew all the time that he'd
be on hand."
It was a white lie. Captain Helm was as much surprised as his captors
at what he heard; but he could not resist the temptation to be annoying.
Hamilton looked as Farnsworth directed, and sure enough, there was the
young Virginian Lieutenant, standing on a barricade, his hat off,
cheering his men with a superb show of zeal. Not a hair of his head was
missing, so far as the glass could be relied upon to show.
Oncle Jazon's quick old eyes saw the gleam of the telescope tube in the
loop-hole.
"I never could shoot much," he muttered, and then a little bullet sped
with absolute accuracy from his disreputable looking rifle and
shattered the object-lens, just as Hamilton moved to withdraw the
glass, uttering an ejaculation of intense excitement.
"Such devils of marksmen!" said he, and his face was haggard. "That
infernal Indian lied."
"I could have told you all the time that the scalp Long-Hair brought to
you was not Beverley's," said Helm indifferently. "I recognized
Lieutenant Barlow's hair as soon as I saw it."
This was another piece of off-hand romance. Helm did not dream that he
was accidentally sketching a horrible truth.
"Barlow's!" exclaimed Farnsworth.
"Yes, Barlow's, no mistake--"
Two more men reeled from a port-hole, the blood spinning far out of
their wounds. Indeed, through every aperture in the walls the bullets
were now humming like mad hornets.
"Close that port-hole!" stormed Hamilton; then turning to Farnsworth he
added: "We cannot endure this long. Shut up every place large enough
for a bullet to get through. Go all around, give strict orders to all.
See that the men do not foolishly expose themselves. Those ruffians out
there have located every crack."
His glimpse of Beverley and the sinister remark of Helm had completely
unmanned him before his men fell. Now it rushed upon him that if he
would escape the wrath of the maddened creoles and the vengeance of
Alice's lover, he must quickly throw himself upon the mercy of Clark.
It was his only hope. He chafed inwardly, but bore himself with stern
coolness. He presently sought Farnsworth, pulled him aside and
suggested that something must be done to prevent an assault and a
massacre. The sounds outside seemed to forebode a gathering for a
desperate rush, and in his heart he felt all the terrors of awful
anticipation.
"We are completely at their mercy, that is plain," he said, shrugging
his shoulders and gazing at the wounded men writhing in their agony.
"What do you suggest?"
Captain Farnsworth was a shrewd officer. He recollected that Philip
Dejean, justice of Detroit, was on his way down the Wabash from that
post, and probably near at hand, with a flotilla of men and supplies.
Why not ask for a few days of truce? It could do no harm, and if agreed
to, might be their salvation. Hamilton jumped at the thought, and
forthwith drew up a note which he sent out with a white flag. Never
before in all his military career had he been so comforted by a sudden
cessation of fighting. His soul would grovel in spite of him. Alice's
cold face now had Beverley's beside it in his field of inner vision--a
double assurance of impending doom, it seemed to him.
There was short delay in the arrival of Colonel Clark's reply, hastily
scrawled on a bit of soiled paper. The request for a truce was flatly
refused; but the note closed thus:
"If Mr. Hamilton is Desirous of a Conferance with Col. Clark he will
meet him at the Church with Captn. Helms."
The spelling was not very good, and there was a redundancy of capital
letters; yet Hamilton understood it all; and it was very difficult for
him to conceal his haste to attend the proposed conference. But he was
afraid to go to the church--the thought chilled him. He could not face
Father Beret, who would probably be there. And what if there should be
evidences of the funeral?--what if?--he shuddered and tried to break
away from the vision in his tortured brain.
He sent a proposition to Clark to meet him on the esplanade before the
main gate of the fort; but Clark declined, insisting upon the church.
And thither he at last consented to go. It was an immense brace to his
spirit to have Helm beside him during that walk, which, although but
eighty yards in extent, seemed to him a matter of leagues. On the way
he had to pass near the new position taken up by Beverley and his men.
It was a fine test of nerve, when the Lieutenant's eyes met those of
the Governor. Neither man permitted the slightest change of countenance
to betray his feelings. In fact, Beverley's face was as rigid as
marble; he could not have changed it.
But with Oncle Jazon it was a different affair. He had no dignity to
preserve, no fine military bearing to sustain, no terrible tug of
conscience, no paralyzing grip of despair on his heart. When he saw
Hamilton going by, bearing himself so superbly, it affected the French
volatility in his nature to such an extent that his tongue could not be
controlled.
"Va t'en, bete, forban, meurtrier! Skin out f'om here! beast, robber,
murderer!" he cried, in his keen screech-owl voice. "I'll git thet
scelp o' your'n afore sundown, see 'f I don't! Ye onery gal-killer an'
ha'r buyer!"
The blood in Hamilton's veins caught no warmth from these remarks; but
he held his head high and passed stolidly on, as if he did not hear a
word. Helm turned the tail of an eye upon Oncle Jazon and gave him a
droll, quizzical wink of approval. In response the old man with
grotesque solemnity drew his buckhorn handled knife, licked its blade
and returned it to its sheath,--a bit of pantomime well understood and
keenly enjoyed by the onlooking creoles.
"Putois! coquin!" they jeered, "goujat! poltron!"
Beverley heard the taunting racket, but did not realize it, which was
well enough, for he could not have restrained the bitter effervescence.
He stood like a statue, gazing fixedly at the now receding figure, the
lofty, cold-faced man in whom centered his hate of hates. Clark had
requested him to be present at the conference in the church; but he
declined, feeling that he could not meet Hamilton and restrain himself.
Now he regretted his refusal, half wishing that--no, he could not
assassinate an enemy under a white flag. In his heart he prayed that
there would be no surrender, that Hamilton would reject every offer. To
storm the fort and revel in butchering its garrison seemed the only
desirable thing left for him in life.
Father Beret was, indeed, present at the church, as Hamilton had
dreaded; and the two duelists gave each other a rapier-like eye-thrust.
Neither spoke, however, and Clark immediately demanded a settlement of
the matter in hand. He was brusque and imperious to a degree,
apparently rather anxious to repel every peaceful advance.
It was a laconic interview, crisp as autumn ice and bitter as
gallberries. Colonel Clark had no respect whatever for Hamilton, to
whom he had applied the imperishable adjective "hair-buyer General." On
the other hand Governor Hamilton, who felt keenly the disgrace of
having to equalize himself officially and discuss terms of surrender
with a rough backwoodsman, could not conceal his contempt of Clark.
The five men of history, Hamilton, Helm, Hay, Clark and Bowman, were
not distinguished diplomats. They went at their work rather after the
hammer-and-tongs fashion. Clark bluntly demanded unconditional
surrender. Hamilton refused. They argued the matter. Helm put in his
oar, trying to soften the situation, as was his custom on all
occasions, and received from Clark a stinging reprimand, with the
reminder that he was nothing but a prisoner on parole, and had no voice
at all in settling the terms of surrender.
"I release him, sir," said Hamilton. "He is no longer a prisoner. I am
quite willing to have Captain Helm join freely in our conference."
"And I refuse to permit his acceptance of your favor," responded Clark.
"Captain Helm, you will return with Mr. Hamilton to the fort and remain
his captive until I free you by force. Meantime hold your tongue."
Father Beret, suave looking and quiet, occupied himself at the little
altar, apparently altogether indifferent to what was being said; but he
lost not a word of the talk.
"Qui habet aures audiendi, audiat," he inwardly repeated, smiling
blandly. "Gaudete in illa die, et exultate!"
Hamilton rose to go; deep lines of worry creased his face; but when the
party had passed outside, he suddenly turned upon Clark and said:
"Why do you demand impossible terms of me?"
"I will tell you, sir," was the stern answer, in a tone in which there
was no mercy or compromise. "I would rather have you refuse. I desire
nothing so much as an excuse to wreak full and bloody vengeance on
every man in that fort who has engaged in the business of employing
savages to scalp brave, patriotic men and defenseless women and
children. The cries of the widows and the fatherless on our frontiers
require the blood of the Indian partisans at my hands. If you choose to
risk the massacre of your garrison to save those despicable red-handed
partisans, have your pleasure. What you have done you know better than
I do. I have a duty to perform. You may be able to soften its nature. I
may take it into my head to send for some of our bereaved women to
witness my terrible work and see that it is well done, if you insist
upon the worst."
Major Hay, who was Hamilton's Indian agent, now, with some difficulty
clearing his throat, spoke up.
"Pray, sir," said he, "who is it that you call Indian partisans?"
"Sir," replied Clark, seeing that his words had gone solidly home, "I
take Major Hay to be one of the principals."
This seemed to strike Hay with deadly force. Clark's report says that
he was "pale and trembling, scarcely able to stand," and that "Hamilton
blushed, and, I observed, was much affected at his behavior.
"Doubtless, if the doughty American commander had known more about the
Governor's feelings just then, he would have added that an awful fear,
even greater than the Indian agent's, did more than anything else to
congest the veins in his face."
The parties separated without reaching an agreement; but the end had
come. The terror in Hamilton's soul was doubled by a wild scene enacted
under the walls of his fort; a scene which, having no proper place in
this story, strong as its historical interest unquestionably is, must
be but outlined. A party of Indians returning from a scalping
expedition in Kentucky and along the Ohio, was captured on the
outskirts of the town by some of Clark's men, who proceeded to kill and
scalp them within full view of the beleaguered garrison, after which
their mangled bodies were flung into the river.
If the British commander needed further wine of dread to fill his cup
withal, it was furnished by ostentatious marshaling of the American
forces for a general assault. His spirit broke completely, so that it
looked like a godsend to him when Clark finally offered terms of
honorable surrender, the consummation of which was to be postponed
until the following morning. He accepted promptly, appending to the
articles of capitulation the following reasons for his action: "The
remoteness from succor; the state and quantity of provisions, etc.;
unanimity of officers and men in its expediency; the honorable terms
allowed; and, lastly, the confidence in a generous enemy."
Confidence in a generous enemy! Abject fear of the vengeance just
wreaked upon his savage emissaries would have been the true statement.
Beverley read the paper when Clark sent for him; but he could not join
in the extravagant delight of his fellow officers and their brave men.
What did all this victory mean to him? Hamilton to be treated as an
honorable prisoner of war, permitted to strut forth from the feat with
his sword at his side, his head up--the scalp-buyer, the murderer of
Alice! What was patriotism to the crushed heart of a lover? Even if his
vision had been able to pierce the future and realize the splendor of
Anglo-Saxon civilization which was to follow that little triumph at
Vincennes, what pleasure could it have afforded him? Alice, Alice, only
Alice; no other thought had influence, save the recurring surge of
desire for vengeance upon her murderer.
And yet that night Beverley slept, and so forgot his despair for many
hours, even dreamed a pleasant dream of home, where his childhood was
spent, of the stately old house on the breezy hill-top overlooking a
sunny plantation, with a little river lapsing and shimmering through
it. His mother's dear arms were around him, her loving breath stirred
his hair; and his stalwart, gray-headed father sat on the veranda
comfortably smoking his pipe, while away in the wide fields the negroes
sang at the plow and the hoe. Sweeter and sweeter grew the scene,
softer the air, tenderer the blending sounds of the water-murmur,
leaf-rustle, bird-song, and slave-song, until hand in hand he wandered
with Alice in greening groves, where the air was trembling with the
ecstacy of spring.
A young officer awoke him with an order from Clark to go on duty at
once with Captains Worthington and Williams, who, under Colonel Clark
himself, were to take possession of the fort. Mechanically he obeyed.
The sun was far up, shining between clouds of a leaden, watery hue, by
the time everything was ready for the important ceremony. Beside the
main gate of the stockade two companies of patriots under Bowman and
McCarty were drawn up as guards, while the British garrison filed out
and was taken in charge. This bit of formality ended, Governor
Hamilton, attended by some of his officers, went back into the fort and
the gate was closed.
Clark now gave orders that preparations be made for hauling down the
British flag and hoisting the young banner of liberty in its place,
when everything should be ready for a salute of thirteen guns from the
captured battery.
Helm's round face was beaming. Plainly it showed that his happiness was
supreme. He dared not say anything, however; for Clark was now all
sternness and formality; it would be dangerous to take any liberties;
but he could smile and roll his quid of tobacco from cheek to cheek.
Hamilton and Farnsworth, the latter slightly wounded in the left arm,
which was bandaged, stood together somewhat apart from their fellow
officers, while preliminary steps for celebrating their defeat and
capture were in progress. They looked forlorn enough to have excited
deep sympathy under fairer conditions.
Outside the fort the creoles were beginning a noise of jubilation. The
rumor of what was going to be done had passed from mouth to mouth,
until every soul in the town knew and thrilled with expectancy. Men,
women and children came swarming to see the sight, and to hear at close
range the crash of the cannon. They shouted, in a scattering way at
first, then the tumult grew swiftly to a solid rolling tide that seemed
beyond all comparison with the population of Vincennes. Hamilton heard
it, and trembled inwardly, afraid lest the mob should prove too strong
for the guard.
One leonine voice roared distinctly, high above the noise. It was a
sound familiar to all the creoles,--that bellowing shout of Gaspard
Roussillon's. He was roaming around the stockade, having been turned
back by the guard when he tried to pass through the main gate.
"They shut me out!" he bellowed furiously. "I am Gaspard Roussillon,
and they shut me out, me! Ziff! me voici! je vais entrer immediatement,
moi!"
He attracted but little attention, however; the people and the soldiery
were all too excited by the special interest of the occasion, and too
busy with making a racket of their own, for any individual, even the
great Roussillon, to gain their eyes or ears. He in turn scarcely heard
the tumult they made, so self-centered were his burning thoughts and
feelings. A great occasion in Vincennes and he, Gaspard Roussillon, not
recognized as one of the large factors in it! Ah, no, never! And he
strode along the wall of the stockade, turning the corners and heavily
shambling over the inequalities till he reached the postern. It was not
fastened, some one having passed through just before him.
"Ziff!" he ejaculated, stepping into the area and shaking himself after
the manner of a dusty mastiff. "C'est moi! Gaspard Roussillon!" His
massive under jaw was set like that of a vise, yet it quivered with
rage, a rage which was more fiery condensation of self-approval than
anger.
Outside the shouting, singing and huzzahs gathered strength and volume,
until the sound became a hoarse roar. Clark was uneasy; he had
overheard much of a threatening character during the siege. The creoles
were, he knew, justly exasperated, and even his own men had been
showing a spirit which might easily be fanned into a dangerous flame of
vengeance. He was very anxious to have the formalities of taking
possession of the fort over with, so that he could the better control
his forces. Sending for Beverley he assigned him to the duty of hauling
down the British flag and running up that of Virginia. It was an honor
of no doubtful sort, which under different circumstances would have
made the Lieutenant's heart glow. As it was, he proceeded without any
sense of pride or pleasure, moving as a mere machine in performing an
act significant beyond any other done west of the mountains, in the
great struggle for American independence and the control of American
territory.
Hamilton stood a little way from the foot of the tall flag-pole, his
arms folded on his breast, his chin slightly drawn in, his brows
contracted, gazing steadily at Beverley while he was untying the
halyard, which had been wound around the pole's base about three feet
above the ground. The American troops in the fort were disposed so as
to form three sides of a hollow square, facing inward. Oncle Jazon,
serving as the ornamental extreme of one line, was conspicuous for his
outlandish garb and unmilitary bearing. The silence inside the stockade
offered a strong contrast to the tremendous roar of voices outside.
Clark made a signal, and at the tap of a drum, Beverley shook the ropes
loose and began to lower the British colors. Slowly the bright emblem
of earth's mightiest nation crept down in token of the fact that a
handful of back-woodsmen had won an empire by a splendid stroke of pure
heroism. Beverley detached the flag, and saluting, handed it to Colonel
Clark. Hamilton's breast heaved and his iron jaws tightened their
pressure until the lines of his cheeks were deep furrows of pain.
Father Beret, who had just been admitted, quietly took a place at one
side near the wall. There was a fine, warm, benignant smile on his old
face, yet his powerful shoulders drooped as if weighted down with a
heavy load. Hamilton was aware when he entered, and instantly the scene
of their conflict came into his memory with awful vividness, and he saw
Alice lying outstretched, stark and, cold, the shining strand of hair
fluttering across her pallid cheek. Her ghost overshadowed him.
Just then there was a bird-like movement, a wing-like rustle, and a
light figure flitted swiftly across the area. All eyes were turned upon
it. Hamilton recoiled, as pale as death, half lifting his hands, as if
to ward off a deadly blow, and then a gay flag was flung out over his
head. He saw before him the girl he had shot; but her beautiful face
was not waxen now, nor was it cold or lifeless. The rich red blood was
strong under the browned, yet delicate skin, the eyes were bright and
brave, the cherry lips, slightly apart, gave a glimpse of pearl white
teeth, and the dimples,--those roguish dimples,--twinkled sweetly.
Colonel Clark looked on in amazement, and in spite of himself, in
admiration. He did not understand; the sudden incident bewildered him;
but his virile nature was instantly and wholly charmed. Something like
a breath of violets shook the tenderest chords of his heart.
Alice stood firmly, a statue of triumph, her right arm outstretched,
holding the flag high above Hamilton's head; and close by her side the
little hunchback Jean was posed in his most characteristic attitude,
gazing at the banner which he himself had stolen and kept hidden for
Alice's sake, and because he loved it.
There was a dead silence for some moments, during which Hamilton's face
showed that he was ready to collapse; then the keen voice of Oncle
Jazon broke forth:
"Vive Zhorzh Vasinton! Vim la banniere d'Alice Roussillon!"
He sprang to the middle of the area and flung his old cap high in air,
with a shrill war-whoop.
"H'ist it! h'ist it! hissez la banniere de Mademoiselle Alice
Roussillon! Voila, que c'est glorieuse, cette banniere la! H'ist it!
h'ist it!"
He was dancing with a rickety liveliness, his goatish legs and
shriveled body giving him the look of an emaciated satyr.
Clark had been told by some of his creole officers the story of how
Alice raised the flag when Helm took the fort, and how she snatched it
from Hamilton's hand, as it were, and would not give it up when he
demanded it. The whole situation pretty soon began to explain itself,
as he saw what Alice was doing. Then he heard her say to Hamilton,
while she slowly swayed the rippling flag back and forth:
"I said, as you will remember, Monsieur le Gouverneur, that when you
next should see this flag, I should wave it over your head. Well, look,
I am waving it! Vive la republique! Vive George Washington! What do you
think of it, Monsieur le Gouverneur?"
The poor little hunchback Jean took off his cap and tossed it in
rhythmical emphasis, keeping time to her words.
And now from behind the hollow square came a mighty voice:
"C'est moi, Gaspard Roussillon; me voici, messieurs!"
There was a spirit in the air which caught from Alice a thrill of
romantic energy. The men in the ranks and the officers in front of them
felt a wave of irresistible sympathy sweep through their hearts. Her
picturesque beauty, her fine temper, the fitness of the incident to the
occasion, had an instantaneous power which moved all men alike.
"Raise her flag! Run up the young lady's flag!" some one shouted, and
then every voice seemed to echo the words. Clark was a young man of
noble type, in whose veins throbbed the warm chivalrous blood of the
cavaliers. A waft of the suddenly prevailing influence bore him also
quite off his feet. He turned to Beverley and said:
"Do it! It will have a great effect. It is a good idea; get the young
lady's flag and her permission to run it up."
Before he finished speaking, indeed at the first glance, he saw that
Beverley, like Hamilton, was white as a dead man; and at the same time
it came to his memory that his young friend had confided to him during
the awful march through the prairie wilderness, a love-story about this
very Alice Roussillon. In the worry and stress of the subsequent
struggle, he had forgotten the tender basis upon which Beverley had
rested his excuse for leaving Vincennes. Now, it all reappeared in
justification of what was going on. It touched the romantic core of his
southern nature.
"I say, Lieutenant Beverley," he repeated, "beg the young lady's
permission to use her flag upon this glorious occasion; or shall I do
it for you?"
There were no miracles in those brave days, and the strain of life with
its terrible realities braced all men and women to meet sudden
explosions of surprise, whether of good or bad effect, with admirable
equipoise; but Beverley's trial, it must be admitted, was
extraordinary; still he braced himself quickly and his whole expression
changed when Clark moved to go to Alice. For he realized now that it
was, indeed, Alice in flesh and blood, standing there, the center of
admiration, filling the air with her fine magnetism and crowning a
great triumph with her beauty. He gave her a glad, flashing smile, as
if he had just discovered her, and walked straight to her, his hands
extended. She was not looking toward him; but she saw him and turned to
face him. Hers was the advantage; for she had known, for some hours, of
his presence in Vincennes, and had prepared herself to meet him
courageously and with maidenly reserve.
There is no safety, however, where Love lurks. Neither Beverley nor
Alice was as much agitated at Hamilton, yet they both forgot, what he
remembered, that a hundred grim frontier soldiers were looking on.
Hamilton had his personal and official dignity to sustain, and he
fairly did it, under what a pressure of humiliating and surprising
circumstances we can fully comprehend. Not so with the two young
people, standing as it were in a suddenly bestowed and incomparable
happiness, on the verge of a new life, each to the other an unexpected,
unhoped-for resurrection from the dead. To them there was no universe
save the illimitable expanse of their love. In that moment of meeting,
all that they had suffered on account of love was transfused and poured
forth,--a glowing libation for love's sake,--a flood before which all
barriers broke.
Father Beret was looking on with a strange fire in his eyes, and what
he feared would happen, did happen. Alice let the flag fall at
Hamilton's feet, when Beverley came near her smiling that great, glad
smile, and with a joyous cry leaped into his outstretched arms.
Jean snatched up the fallen banner and ran to Colonel Clark with it.
Two minutes later it was made fast and the halyard began to squeak
through the rude pulley at the top of the pole. Up, up, climbed the gay
little emblem of glory, while the cannon crashed from the embrasures of
the blockhouse hard by, and outside the roar of voices redoubled.
Thirteen guns boomed the salute, though it should have been
fourteen,--the additional one for the great Northwestern Territory,
that day annexed to the domain of the young American Republic. The flag
went up at old Vincennes never to come down again, and when it reached
its place at the top of the staff, Beverley and Alice stood side by
side looking at it, while the sun broke through the clouds and flashed
on its shining folds, and love unabashed glorified the two strong young
faces.