s and the Choctaws until we came to a high bluff, and saw
the Mississippi before us, brown and full and marked with drifting
trees, and up the river the white houses of Natchez. There we camped
until we made out the flat-boat,--General Wilkinson's boat, all laden
with tobacco and flour and bacon, and just a few Kentucks with
muskets,--that the Spaniards at Natchez had been fools enough to let
pass! We hailed that boat, and it came up beneath the cottonwoods, and I
went aboard with the letters from Louisville, and on we went, down the
river, past the great woods and the strange little towns, and the
cotton-fields and the sugar-canes, and the moss hanging like banners
from taller trees than this gum, to New Orleans. And there the Intendant
would have laid hands on our cargo and sent every mother's son of us
packing, but Miro, that was governor, stood our friend, being frightened
indeed of what Kentucky might do if put to it! And there, on the levee,
we sold that tobacco and flour and bacon; and the tobacco which we sold
at home for shillings and pence, we sold at New Orleans for joes and
doubloons. Ay, ay, and not one picayune of duty did we pay! Ay, and we
opened the Mississippi!"

The speaker paused to take from his pouch several leaves of tobacco, and
to roll them deftly into a long cigar. The boy rose to throw more wood
upon the fire, then sat again at the trader's feet, and with his chin in
his hand stared into the glowing hollows.

"The West!" said Gaudylock, between slow puffs of smoke. "Kentucky and
the Ohio and the Mississippi, and then Louisiana and all that lies
beyond, and Mexico and its gold! Ha! the Mississippi open from its
source--and the Lord in Heaven knows where that may be--to the last
levee! and not a Spaniard to stop a pirogua, and right to trade in every
port, and no lingo but plain English, and Mexico like a ripe
apple,--just a touch of the bough, and there's the gold in hand! If I
were a dreamer, I would dream of the West."

"Folk have always dreamed of the West," said the boy. "Sailors and
kings, and men with their fortune to make. I've read about Cortez and
Pizarro,--it would be fine to be like that!"

"I thought you wanted to study law."

"I do; but I could be a great soldier, too."

Gaudylock laughed. "You would trap all the creatures in the wood! Well,
live long enough, and you'll hear a drum beat. They're restless,
restless, yonder on the rivers! But they'll need the lawyers, too. Just