Part 26 (1/2)
”So! So!” he mused at length, when I had finished, ”England has started a land party for Oregon! Can they get across next fall, think you?”
”Hardly possible, sir,” said I. ”They could not go so swiftly as the special fur packets. Winter would catch them this side of the Rockies.
It will be a year before they can reach Oregon.”
”Time for a new president and a new policy,” mused he.
”The gra.s.s is just beginning to sprout on the plains, Mr. Calhoun,” I began eagerly.
”Yes,” he nodded. ”G.o.d! if I were only young!”
”I am young, Mr. Calhoun,” said I. ”Send _me!_”
”Would you go?” he asked suddenly.
”I was going in any case.”
”Why, how do you mean?” he demanded.
I felt the blood come to my face. ”'Tis all over between Miss Elisabeth Churchill and myself,” said I, as calmly as I might.
”Tut! tut! a child's quarrel,” he went on, ”a child's quarrel! 'Twill all mend in time.”
”Not by act of mine, then,” said I hotly.
Again abstracted, he seemed not wholly to hear me.
”First,” he mused, ”the more important things”--riding over my personal affairs as of little consequence.
”I will tell you, Nicholas,” said he at last, wheeling swiftly upon me.
”Start next week! An army of settlers waits now for a leader along the Missouri. Organize them; lead them out! Give them enthusiasm! Tell them what Oregon is! You may serve alike our party and our nation. You can not measure the consequences of prompt action sometimes, done by a man who is resolved upon the right. A thousand things may hinge on this. A great future may hinge upon it.”
It was only later that I was to know the extreme closeness of his prophecy.
Calhoun began to pace up and down. ”Besides her land forces,” he resumed, ”England is despatching a fleet to the Columbia! I doubt not that the _Modeste_ has cleared for the Horn. There may be news waiting for you, my son, when you get across!
”While you have been busy, I have not been idle,” he continued. ”I have here another little paper which I have roughly drafted.” He handed me the doc.u.ment as he spoke.
”A treaty--with Texas!” I exclaimed.
”The first draft, yes. We have signed the memorandum. We await only one other signature.”
”Of Van Zandt!”
”Yes. Now comes Mr. Nicholas Trist, with word of a certain woman to the effect that Mr. Van Zandt is playing also with England.”
”And that woman also is playing with England.”
Calhoun smiled enigmatically.
”But she has gone,” said I, ”who knows where? She, too, may have sailed for Oregon, for all we know.”
He looked at me as though with a flash of inspiration. ”That may be,”