It was barely dusk when candles were lighted in the sconces around the walls, and on the mantel and bar.  The host had his chair by a crackling fire, for continual dampness made the July night raw; and the crane was swung over the blaze with a steaming tea-kettle on one of its hooks.  Several Indians also sat by the stone flags, opposite the host, moving nothing but their small restless eyes; aboriginal America watching transplanted Europe, and detecting the incompatible qualities of French and English blood.

The bar-room had its orchestra of three banjos, making it a hall of music every night in the year.  And herein Africa added itself to the civilization of the New World.  Three coal-black slaves of the host’s sat on a bench sacred to them, and softly twanged their instruments, breaking out at intervals into the wild chants of their people; improvising, and stimulating each other by musical hints and exclamations.  It was evident that they esteemed their office; and the male public of Kaskaskia showed them consideration.  While the volume of talk was never lessened during their glees, the talkers all listened with at least one ear.  There was no loud brawling, and the laughter raised by argument rarely drowned the banjos.  Sometimes a Frenchman was inspired to cut a pigeon wing; and Father Baby had tripped it over every inch of this oak floor, when the frenzy for dancing seized him and the tunes were particularly irresistible.  The bar-room gave him his only taste of Kaskaskia society, and he took it with zest.  Little wizened black-eyed fellows clapped their hands, delighting, while their priest was not by, in the antics of a disreputable churchman; but the bigger and colder race paid little attention to him.

Various as were the home backgrounds of the lives converging at the tavern, there were but two topics before that little public while the cosy fire roared and the banjos rattled.  A rumor of coming high water was running down the Mississippi valley like the wind which is driven before a rush of rain; and the non-separation party had suffered some local defeat in the Indiana Territory.  The first item of news took greatest hold on those serious Anglo-Americans who had come from the Atlantic coast to found estates in this valley.  On the contrary, the peasant tenant gave his mind to politics.  It was still an intoxicating privilege for him to have a say in the government.

“Dese Indiana Territory fellers,” piped a grasshopper of a Frenchman, springing from his chair in excitement, “dey want our slaves, dey want our Territory,—­dey want de hide off our backs.”

“Tony Lamarche,” drawled a Virginian, “you don’t know what you’re talking about.  You haven’t e’er a slave to your name; and you don’t own a foot of the Territory.  As for your hide, it wouldn’t make a drumhead nohow.  So what are you dancin’ about?”

“If I got no land, I got some of dose rights of a citizen, eh?” snorted Antoine, planting himself in front of the Virginian, and bending forward until they almost touched noses.