As we walked back towards the fort we came to a little house with a
flower garden in front of it, and there stood Colonel Clark himself by
the gate. He stopped us with a motion of his hand.

"Davy," said he, "we are to live here for a while, you and I. What do
you think of our headquarters?" He did not wait for me to reply, but
continued, "Can you suggest any improvement?"

"You will be needing a soldier to be on guard in front, sir," said I.

"Ah," said the Colonel, "McChesney is too valuable a man. I am sending
him with Captain Bowman to take Cahokia."

"Would you have Terence, sir?" I ventured, while Terence grinned.
Whereupon Colonel Clark sent him to report to his captain that he was
detailed for orderly duty to the commanding officer. And within half an
hour he was standing guard in the flower garden, making grimaces at the
children in the street. Colonel Clark sat at a table in the little front
room, and while two of Monsieur Rocheblave's negroes cooked his dinner,
he was busy with a score of visitors, organizing, advising, planning, and
commanding. There were disputes to settle now that alarm had subsided,
and at noon three excitable gentlemen came in to inform against a certain
Monsieur Cerre, merchant and trader, then absent at St. Louis. When at
length the Colonel had succeeded in bringing their denunciations to an
end and they had departed, he looked at me comically as I stood in the
doorway.

"Davy," said he, "all I ask of the good Lord is that He will frighten me
incontinently for a month before I die."