and he asked him wonderingly:

"From whence are you, friends?"

"From the land of the far south--from the rolling plains of the
giant Mississippi, that vast river of which perchance you have
heard?"

"Ay, verily," answered Humphrey, with a touch of bitterness in his
tone. "I have heard of that great river, which the French King
claims to have discovered, and which they say he will guard with a
chain of forts right away from Canada, and will thus command all
the New World of the West, pinning us English within the limits of
that portion of land lying betwixt the ocean and the range of the
Allegheny Mountains," and Humphrey waved his hand in that
direction, and looked questioningly at the men before him.

He had an impression that all who came from the far south, from the
colony of Louisiana, as he had heard it called, must be in some
sort French subjects. And yet these men spoke his own tongue, and
seemed to be friends and brothers.

"That was the chimera of the French Monarch more than a century
ago. Methinks it is little nearer its accomplishment now than when
our forefathers, acting as pioneers, made a small settlement in a
green valley near to the mouth of the giant river, waiting for the
King to send his priests and missionaries to convert the heathen
from their evil ways, and found a fair Christian realm in that fair
land."