"_Por Dios!_ What a life!" cried Don Pedro. "We also have our Indian battles. But to live among the ferocious savages--_Santa Maria_! Small wonder you men of the forest wilderness are men of iron!" "Many settlers of soft fibre have come over the mountains since the days of peace. But the men who first hewed their homes in the wilderness had to be of iron. Such are those who now press on to the new frontiers of the South, the Lakes, and the Mississippi." "Among whom is our friend Don Juan," replied Alisanda. I looked, thinking to see a mocking glance, and instead found myself gazing down into the fathomless depths of her eyes. CHAPTER X THE FATHER OF WATERS So far I have written at some length of our voyage, for it was these first days that set the stamp upon the relations of our little party. From the hills of Cincinnati, which we sighted as I ended the story of my boyhood, on down the long descent to Natchez, I was as one of Don Pedro's own kinsmen. The name spoken by Alisanda, seemingly in jest, became the name by which all addressed me, only that before we entered the Mississippi both the senor and she had begun to drop the "Don" in favor of the familiar "Juan." So "Juan" and "Alisanda" it became between my lady and me, and Don Pedro looked on and smiled. Yet with and beneath it all, both held to a subtle reserve which told me plainer than words that the barriers were down only for a truce, and not for a treaty,--that our freedom of conduct as fellow-travellers would at the journey's end be barred by a return to customs not of the country. At times when alone on watch at night, I thought with misgiving of the approaching days when my lady would resume her fine Castilian hauteur and Don Pedro his punctilious politeness. But on the whole I was content to make the most of my opportunities,--to drift with the current of our companionship as the boat drifted with the stream. Milder days came to us as we floated down into the Southwest,--days of grateful sunshine and lessening rains,--heavenly hours beneath the blue sky, when, inspired by the blossoming springtime upon the verdant shores, we sat together in the open stern and sang solos and duets and trios to the accompaniment of the guitar. With the coming of nightfall I learned to look longingly for fog or wet, for a clear moon meant a night on watch, that we might lose nothing of the drift. But a dark sky gave me excuse to tie up to the bank for the night and join in an evening of music and genteel talk about our crackling beechwood fire. Then there were lessons for me in Spanish from the don, and in the playing of the guitar by Alisanda. It was strange how clumsy were my fingers and how repeatedly I had to ask my fair teacher to place them correctly. And so we swept on down the beautiful river, the swirling depth of the Spring fresh bearing us clear over the rocks of the Ohio Falls at Louisville, as over the hundreds of miles of inundated flats and shoals above and below.