that's outside. I want to git in a boat,
an' go on one uv the rivers into the Ohio an' then down the Ohio to the
Missip, an' down the Missip to New Or-lee-yuns whar them Spaniards are.
I met a feller once who had been thar an' he said it wuz a whalin' big
town, full uv all kinds uv strange people, an' hevin' an' inquirin' mind
I like to see all kinds uv furriners an' size 'em up. Do you reckon,
Paul, that New Or-lee-yuns is the biggest city in the world?"

"Oh, no, Jim. There are many much larger cities in the old continents,
Europe, Asia and Africa."

"Them are so fur away that they hardly count nohow. An' thar's a lot uv
big dead cities, ain't thar?"

"Certainly. Babylon, that our Bible often speaks of, and Nineveh, and
Tyre, and Memphis and Thebes and----"

"Stop, Paul! That's enough. I reckon I ain't sorry them old places are
dead. It took a heap uv ground fur 'em to stand on, ground that might be
covered with grass an' bushes an' trees, all in deep an' purty green
like them out thar. Me bein' what I am, I always think it's a pity to
ruin a fine forest to put a town in its place."

"Those cities, I think, were mostly in desert countries with an
artificial water supply."

"Then I don't want ever to see 'em or what's left uv 'em. People who
built cities whar no water an' trees wuz ought to hev seen 'em perish.
Wouldn't me an' Sol look fine trailin' 'roun' among them ruins an' over
them deserts? Not a buff'ler, nor a deer, not a b'ar anywhar, an' not a
fish; 'cause they ain't even a good big dew fur a fish to swim in.

"But leavin' out them old places that's plum' rusted away, an' comin'
back to this here favored land o' ours, I want, after seein' everythin'
thar is to be seen in the great city of New Or-lee-yuns, to go straight
west with you fellers, an' Shif'less Sol that's outside, clean across
the great buff'ler plains that we've talked about afore."

"Cross 'em!" said Silent Tom, speaking for the first time. "You can't
cross 'em. They go on forever."

"No, they don't. Once I come across a French trapper who had been clean
to the edge uv 'em, tradin' with the Injuns fur furs. I don't know how
many weeks an' months it took him, but cross 'em he did, an' what do you
think he found on the other side, Tom Ross?"

"The sea."

"Nary a sea. He found mountains, mountains sech ez we ain't got this
side the Missip, mountains that go right up to the top uv the sky,
cuttin' through clouds on the way, mountains tha