At Bayou Pierre, a handful of miles above Natchez, Aaron hears of a Jefferson proclamation. The news touches his heart as with a finger of frost. Folk say the proclamation recites incipient treason in the States west of the Alleghenies, and warns all men not to engage therein on peril of their necks. About the same time comes word that the red-nosed, treacherous Wilkinson has caused the arrest of Adair, Dr. Boll-man, Samuel Swartwout, and young Ogden, and shipped them, per schooner, to Baltimore, to answer as open traitors to the State. Aaron requires all his fortitude to command himself. The Governor of Mississippi grows excited; he feels the heroic need of doing something. He hoarsely orders out certain companies of militia; after which he calls into counsel his attorney general. The latter potentate advises eloquence before powder and ball. He believes that treason, black and lowering, is abroad, the country’s integrity threatened by the demonaic Aaron. Still, he has faith in his own sublime powers as an orator. He tells the governor that he can talk the treason-mongering Aaron into tameness. At this the governor--nobly willing to risk and, if need press, sacrifice his attorney general on the altars of a common good--bids him try what he can eloquently do. The confident attorney general goes to Aaron, where that would-be conqueror is lying, at Bayou Pierre. He sets forth what a fatal mistake it would be, were Aaron to lock military horns with the puissant territory of Mississippi. Common prudence, he says, dictates that Aaron surrender without a struggle, and come into court and be tried. Aaron makes not the least objection. He goes with the attorney general, and, pending investigation by the grand jurors, is enthusiastically hailed by rich planters of the region, who sign for ten thousand dollars. The grand jurors, following the example of those others of the blue grass, find Aaron an innocent, ill-used individual. They order his honorable release, and then devote themselves, with heartfelt diligence, to indicting the governor for illicitly employing the militia. Cool counsel intervenes, however, and the grand jurors, not without difficulty, are convinced that the governor intended no wrong. Thereupon they content themselves with grimly warning that official to hereafter let “honest settlers” coming into the country alone. Having discharged their duty in the premises, the grand jurors lapse into private life and the governor draws a long breath of relief. Aaron procures a copy of Jefferson’s anti-treason proclamation. The West will snap derisive fingers at it; but New England and the East are sure to be set on edge. The proclamation itself is enough to cripple his enterprise of empire. Added to the treachery of the rednosed Wilkinson, it makes such empire for the nonce impossible. The proclamation does not name him; but Aaron knows that the dullest mind between the oceans will supply the omission.