PHILIP NOLAN’S FRIENDS; OR, ‘‘SHOW YOUR PASSPORTS!” 
From Edward Everett Hale’s Serial Story begun in Scribner’s Monthly for January, 1876. 
CHAPTER IV. 
“ SHOW YOUR PASSPORTS ! ” 
*‘The pine-tree dreameth of the palm, 
The palm-tree of the pine.” — Lord Houghton. 
Philip Nolan had his reasons for avoid- 
ing long tarry at the Rapids, and when the 
new boat came with the party to the little 
port of Natchitoches, he had the same rea- 
sons for urging haste in the transfer of their 
equipment there. These reasons he had 
unfolded to Eunice, and they were serious. 
After all the plans had been made for 
this autumn journey — plans which involved 
fatigue, perhaps, for the ladies, but certainly no 
danger — the Spanish officials of Louisiana on 
the one side, and of Texas on the other, 
had been seized by one of their periodical 
quaking fits — fits of easy depression, which 
were more and more frequent with every 
year. Nolan had come and gone once and 
again, with Spanish passports in full form, 
from the Governor of Louisiana. The pres- 
ent of a handsome mustang on his return 
would not be declined by that officer ; and, 
as the horse grew older, he would not, per- 
haps, be averse to the chances of another 
expedition. With just such free-conduct 
was Nolan equipped now, and with his 
party of thirteen men he had started from 
Natchez, on the Mississippi, to take up 
Miss Eunice and Miss Inez with their party 
at Natchitoches, the frontier station on the 
Red River. Just before starting, however, 
the Spanish consul at Natchez had called 
the party before Judge Bruin, the United 
States Judge there, as if they were filibusters. 
But Nolan’s passport from Don Pedro de 
Nava, the commandant of the north-eastern 
provinces, was produced, and the Judge dis- 
missed the complaint. This had been, 
however, only the beginning of trouble. 
Before Nolan joined the ladies, he had 
hardly passed the Mississippi swamp — had, 
in fact, traveled only forty miles, when he 
met a company of fifty Spanish soldiers, 
who had been sent out to stop him. Nolan’s 
party numbered but twenty-one. The Span- 
iards pretended that they were hunting lost 
horses; but so soon as Nolan’s party passed, 
they had turned westward also, and were 
evidently dogging them. 
It was this unfriendly feeling on the part 
of those whom he was approaching as a 
friend, which had led Nolan to hasten his 
meeting with Eunice Perry and her niece, 
that he might, before it was too late, ask 
them whether they would abandon their 
enterprise and return. 
But Eunice boldly said “ No.” Her 
niece was, alas, a Spanish woman born; 
she was going to visit a Spanish officer on 
his invitation. If she had to show her pass- 
ports every day, she could show them. If 
Captain Nolan did not think they embar- 
rassed the party, she was sure that she would 
go on. If he did, why, she must return, 
though unwillingly. 
“ Not I, indeed. Miss Eunice. You pro- 
tect us where we meant to protect you. Only 
I do not care to cross these Dogberrys more 
often than I can help.” 
So it was determined that they should go 
on, — but go on without the little halt at 
Natchitoches, which had been intended. 
Inez shared in all the excitement of a 
prompt departure the moment the neces- 
sity was. communicated to her. Before sun- 
rise she was awake, and was dressed in the 
prairie dress which had been devised for 
her. The four packs to which she had been 
bidden to confine herself— for two mules, 
selected and ready at L’Ecore, — had been 
packed ever since they left Orleans, let 
it be confessed, by old Ransom’s agency, 
quite as much as by any tire-woman of her 
train. She was only too impatient while 
old Caesar, the cook, elaborated the last 
river breakfast. She could not bear to have 
Eunice spend so much time in directions to 
the patron, and farewells to the boatmen 
and messages to their wives. When it actu- 
ally came to the spreading a plaster which 
Tony was to take back to his wife for a 
sprain she had in her shoulder, Inez fairly 
walked off the boat, in her certainty that 
she should be cross even to Eunice if she 
staid one minute longer. 
As the sun rose, the party gathered 
in front of the little shanty at which the 
most of the business of the landing was 
done. Ransom himself lifted Inez upon her 
saddle; adjusted the stirrups forty times, 
as if he had not himself cut the holes in 
the leathers, just as Inez bade him, a month 
before. Nolan watched for Eunice’s com- 
