"Torville!"  I almost dropped my glass, and I am a man not easily startled.

She turned to look at me, aware of my presence for the first time.  "You have been eavesdropping on a conversation that is no concern of yours!" she said with anger.

"I beg your pardon," I replied sincerely.  "I am drinking my cider.  It was impossible not to overhear your conversation."

Simon Tate but glanced at me.  Both the men who accompanied her looked over at me, the younger with obvious disapproval, the older with a careful measuring look.

The conversation continued, but in lower tones.  I heard nothing more that made sense, yet I needed little more.  Haughty the young lady might be, but she was obviously well informed, and I had great respect for her sources of information.  My family knew about the Fuggers.  The earliest Talon had dealings with them, may even have written some of those letters of which she spoke.  In fact, he had himself used somewhat the same methods to keep abreast of changing situations in India, China, and the Malays.

In the days of his privateering, this Talon had been active in those waters, and in fact, his own wife had come from India.

If the girl's information was correct, Torville was the leader - or one of the leaders - of a plot to seize the Louisana Territory and set up an independent kingdom.  It seemed a wild scheme, yet there were many reasons why it might be successful.  Not until 1818 had a firm boundary been established between the United States and Canada along the forty-ninth parallel from the Rainy Lake to the Rockies.

Only recently had the treaty been signed with Spain ceding Florida to the United States and defining the western border of the Louisana Purchase at the forty-second parallel.  The United States had renounced claims to Texas, and rights to many parts of this great new land were openly disputed.

But many Americans believed reports from various officers of the army that the great plains were a vast wasteland, the so-called Great American Desert, and therefore totally unfit for cultivation or settlement.  The result was that few Americans believed the area worth fighting for.

In Mexico there was a growing movement for independence from Spain and the prospects of fighting had lured adventurers and soldiers-of-fortune from all over the world, most of whom had gathered in New Orleans to await the turn of events that might offer them opportunity for sudden wealth, looting, or whatever the chance offered.

Rumors of gold in the far western lands, mostly originating in Santa Fe and Mexico itself, had lured others.