Morris tribune. [volume] (Morris, Minn.) 1880-2000, 1918-03-22

or two's voyage In his fatboat, and,
in short, fascinated him. For the next
year barrack life was very tame to
poor Nolan. He occasionally availed
Of the permission the great man had
given him to write to him. Long, high
worded, stilted letters the poor boy
wrote and re-wrote and copied. But
never line did he have in reply from
the gay deceiver. The other boys in
the garrison sneered at him, because
he sacrificed in this unrequited affec.
ton for a politician the time which
they devoted to Monongahela, sledge.
and high-low-jack. Bourbon, euchre,
and poker were still unknown. But
one day Nolan had his revenge. This
time Burr came down the river, not as
An attorney seeking place for his
office, but as a disguised conqueror.
He had defeated I know not how many
district attorneys; he had dined at ]
know not how many public dinners; he
had been heralded in know not how
many Weekly Arguses; and it was ru-
mOred that he had an army behind him
and an empire before him. It was a
great day-his arrival-tO poor Nolan.
Burr had not been at the fort an hour
before he sent for him. That evening
he asked Nolan to take him out in his
skiff, to show him a cane-brake or
cottonwood tree, as he said, really to
seduce him; and by the time the sail
was over, Nolan was enlisted body and
From "a no
not yet know it, he lived as "a Man
without Country"
What Burr meant to do I know no
more than you, dear reader. 1t is none
Of our business just now. Only, when
the grand catastrophe came, and JEFF
ferson and the House of Virginia Of
that day undertook to break on the
wheel all the possible Clarences of the
then House of York, by the great
treason trial at Richmond, some of the
lesser fry in that distant Mississippi
valley, which was farther from us than
Puget Sound is today, introduced the
like novelty on their provincial stage,
and, to while away the monotony of
the summer at Fort Adams, got up, for
spectacles, a string Of cOurt-martials
on the officers there. One and anoth-
err of the colonies and majors were
tried, and, to fill out the list, little No
Ian, against whom, heaven knows,
there was evidence enough, that he
was sick Of the service, had been will
ing to be false to it, and would have
obeyed any order to march anywhither
with anyone who would follow him,
had the order only been signed, 'By
command Of His Exc. A. Burr" The
courts dragged on. The big flies es-
capped, rightly for all | know. Nolan
was proved guilty enough, as I say;
yet you and would never have heard
Of him, reader, but that, when the
president of the court asked him at the
close, whether he wished to say any
thing to show that he had always been
faithful to the United States, he cried
out, in fit of frenzy:
oh the United States! I wish
I may never hear of the United States
again!" .-s.>. ~=..r..
I suppose he did not know how the
words shocked old Colonel Morgan,
who was holding the court. Half the
officers who sat In it had served
through the Revolution, and their
lives, not to say their necks, had been
risked for the very idea which he 30
cavalferly cursed In his madness. He,
on his part, had grown up in the West
of those days, in the midst Of Spanish
plot" "Orleans plot" and all the rest.
His education, such as it was, had
been perfected in commercial expedi-
tons to Vera Cruz, and think he told
me his father once hired an English
man to be private tutor for q winter
On the plantation. He had spent half
his youth with an older brother, hunt
ing horses in Texas; and, in a word, to