with his valour, the President had congratulated him and asked, "Do you remember me?"
"No, I never met you before."
"Yes," answered the President, "you are the officer that swore me in as a volunteer private in the Black Hawk War."
The next day the assassin's bullet laid low the martyred Lincoln; none mourned him more than Meriwether Lewis Clark, for in that President he had known a friend.
XXI
A GREAT LIFE ENDS
"Ruskosky, man, you tie my queue so tight I cannot shut my eyes!"
With both hands up to his head Governor Clark rallied his Polish attendant, who of all things was particular about his friend's appearance. For Ruskosky never considered himself a servant, nor did Clark. Ruskosky was an old soldier of Pulaski, a great swordsman, a gentleman, of courtly address and well educated, the constant companion of Governor Clark after the death of York.
"Come, let us walk, Ruskosky."
A narrow black ribbon was tied to the queue, the long black cloth cloak was brushed and the high broad-brim hat adjusted, the sword cane with buckhorn handle and rapier blade was grasped, and out they started.
Children stared at the ancient queue and small clothes. The oldest American in St. Louis, Governor Clark had come to be regarded as a "gentleman of the old school." A sort of halo hung around his adventures. Beloved, honoured, trusted, revered, his prominent nose and firm-set lips, his thin complexion in which the colour came and went, seemed somehow to belong to the Revoluti
