Anthony was speechless.
The Sieur de Boisbriant began again: "We must give up our dreams of such gold as the Spaniards found. Our wealth is in agriculture. It takes a longer time to develop fields than it does to pick up gold, but the riches are quite as sure. That nation is stable whose people live on the soil."
Anthony had no farming blood in him. He could not give up all dreams of a French Eldorado. "We found some lead in the Missouri country—"
"Also delicious wild apples of quite as much value as the lead," interrupted the lieutenant, in his turn bent on proving his point.
How little either one of them guessed that Missouri was finally to produce as its best known asset a crop of fun, through its humorist Mark Twain, which would supply not only the Mississippi country, but the whole laughter-hungry world.
Anthony rubbed his chin and thought about it. "It is true that our settlers in their log houses so neatly whitewashed and thatched, so pretty with the roses and grape-vines on the galleries and the violets growing side by side with beans in the garden, are more contented and industrious tilling the outlying fields of the commandant's common than are the gold-hunters who never get anything but yellow fever as they go prospecting. To enable this state of affairs to continue I must now catch a bear to hold a beggar's cup under the king's nose and collect a bit of needed money—is that your request?"
"It is."
It seems incredible, but they did it. Braves were selected for their prowess, squaws for their accomplishments, and maids for their beauty. Sergeant Du Bois of the fort was their chief assistant. He admired the lithe slenderness, the rich, heavy hair, and the delicate features of the Indian girls. He suggested:
"My lord lieutenant, let the chieftain's daughter, who is called a princess, be invited to head the embassy and give social tone to the expedition."
Oh, diplomatic young man! Oh, ardent lover! For this strange affair with the princess his name is written in history. His heroic deeds as a soldier have faded beside its romance.