the other four, endorsing it with the same terse military record, "Shot
at sunrise."

Nor since that fateful hour has the world known otherwise, for,
although strange rumors floated down the great river to be whispered
about from lip to lip, and New Orleans wondered many a long month
whither had vanished the fair young wife, the daughter of Lafrénière,
yet no authentic message found its way out of the vast northern
wilderness. For nearly one hundred and fifty years history has
accepted without question the testimony of the Spanish records. The
man who alone could tell the strange story was in old age impelled to
do so by a feeling of sacred duty to the dead; and his papers,
disarranged, ill-written, already yellowed by years, have fallen to my
keeping. I submit them without comment or change, save only as to the
subdivision into chapters, with an occasional substitution for some
old-time phrase of its more modern equivalent. He who calls himself
"Geoffrey Benteen, Gentleman Adventurer," shall tell his own tale.

R. P.




Prisoners of Chance


CHAPTER I

THE REQUEST FOR AID