"Yes."
"That is good. I feel for him here," and he would lay his hand on his heart. "I love the story boy."
They traveled slowly. After a long journey down the Illinois, the Mississippi rolled before them in the full tides of early spring. They passed St. Louis, and one late April evening found them before the once royal town of Kaskaskia.
The bell was ringing as they landed, the bell that had been cast in fair Rochelle, and that was the first bell to ring between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi. Most of the black-robed missionaries were gone, as had the high-born French officers, with their horses, sabers, and banner-plumes, who once sought treasure and fame in this grand town of the Mississippi Valley. The Bourbon lilies had fallen from old Fort Chartres a generation ago, and the British cross had come down, and to-day all the houses, new and old, were decked with the stars and stripes. It was not a holiday. What did it mean?
Jasper and Waubeno entered the old French town, and gazed at the brick buildings, the antique roofs, the high dormer windows, and the faded houses of by-gone priest and nun. The tavern was covered with flags, French and American, as were the grand house of William Morrison and the beautiful Edgar mansion. The house once occupied by the French commandant was wrapped in the national colors. It had been the first State House of Illinois. A hundred years before—just one hundred years—Kaskaskia Commons had received its grand name from his most Christian Majesty Louis XV, and it then seemed likely to become the capital of the French mid-continent empire in the New World. The Jesuits flocked here, zealous for the conversion of the Indian races. Here came men of rank and military glory, and Fort Chartres rose near it, grand and powerful as if to awe the world. But there was a foe in the fort of the French heart, and the boundless empire faded, and the old French town went to the American pioneer, and the fort became a ruin, like Louisburg at Cape Breton.
As Jasper and Waubeno passed along the broad streets they noticed that the town was filled with country people, and that there were Indians among them.
One of these Indians approached Waubeno, and said:
"She—yonder—see—Mary Panisciowa—daughter of the Great Chief—Mary Panisciowa."
Waubeno followed with his eye the daughter of the Chief of the Six Nations. He went forward with the crowd and came to the house that she was making her home, and asked to meet her. Jasper had followed him.
They turned aside from the street, which was full of excited people—excited Jasper knew not why. The door of the house where Mary Panisciowa was visiting stood open, and they were asked to enter.