Following, with ever tantalized expectancy, the broken and breezy
hints in the Roussillon letter, I pursued a will-o'-the-wisp,
here, there, yonder, until by slowly arriving increments I
gathered up a large amount of valuable facts, which when I came to
compare them with the history of Clark's conquest of the Wabash
Valley, fitted amazingly well into certain spaces heretofore left
open in that important yet sadly imperfect record.

You will find that I was not so wrong in suspecting that Emile
Jazon, mentioned in the Roussillon letter, was a brother of Jean
Jazon and a famous scout in the time of Boone and Clark. He was,
therefore, a kinsman of yours on the maternal side, and I
congratulate you. Another thing may please you, the success which
attended my long and patient research with a view to clearing up
the connection between Alice Roussillon's romantic life, as
brokenly sketched in M. Roussillon's letter, and the capture of
Vincennes by Colonel George Rogers Clark.

Accept, then, this book, which to those who care only for history
will seem but an idle romance, while to the lovers of romance it
may look strangely like the mustiest history. In my mind, and in
yours I hope, it will always be connected with a breezy summer-
house on a headland of the Louisiana gulf coast, the rustling of
palmetto leaves, the fine flash of roses, a tumult of mocking-bird
voices, the soft lilt of Creole patois, and the endless dash and
roar of a fragrant sea over which the gulls and pelicans never
ceased their flight, and beside which you smoked while I dreamed.

MAURICE THOMPSON.
JULY, 1900.