goodly part of our Louisiana Creoles received a German tincture, and the
father and the aunt of Suzanne and Françoise were not the only Alsatians
we shall meet in these wild stories of wild times in Louisiana.

FOOTNOTES:
[1] Name of the parish, or county.--Translator.
[2] Royalist refugees of '93.--TRANSLATOR.




THE YOUNG AUNT WITH WHITE HAIR.

1782.

The date of this letter--I hold it in one hand as I write, and for the
first time noticed that it has never in its hundred years been sealed or
folded, but only doubled once, lightly, and rolled in the hand, just as
the young Spanish officer might have carried it when he rode so hard to
bear it to its destination--its date is the last year but one of our
American Revolution. France, Spain, and the thirteen colonies were at war
with Great Britain, and the Indians were on both sides.

Galvez, the heroic young governor of Louisiana, had just been decorated by
his king and made a count for taking the forts at Manchac, Baton Rouge,
Natchez, and Mobile, and besieging and capturing the stronghold of
Pensacola, thus winning all west Florida, from the Mississippi to the
Appalachicola, for Spain. But this vast wilderness was not made safe; Fort
Panmure (Natchez) changed hands twice, and the land was full of Indians,
partly hireling friends and partly enemies. The waters about the Bahamas