A Volunteer with Pike by Robert Ames Bennet

So far I have written at some length of our voyage, for it was these first days that set the stamp upon the relations of our little party. From the hills of Cincinnati, which we sighted as I ended the story of my boyhood, on down the long descent to Natchez, I was as one of Don Pedro's own kinsmen. The name spoken by Alisanda, seemingly in jest, became the name by which all addressed me, only that before we entered the Mississippi both the senor and she had begun to drop the "Don" in favor of the familiar "Juan."

So "Juan" and "Alisanda" it became between my lady and me, and Don Pedro looked on and smiled. Yet with and beneath it all, both held to a subtle reserve which told me plainer than words that the barriers were down only for a truce, and not for a treaty, -- that our freedom of conduct as fellow-travellers would at the journey's end be barred by a return to customs not of the country.