ed the door, and, spreading out the journal on
my bed, proceeded to search for the Texan paragraph. It was headed in
capitals, and easily found. It ran thus:--

"WANTED--A few downright, go-ahead ones, to join an excursion into the
One-Star Republic,--the object being to push a way down South, and open
a new trade-line for home doings. Applicants to address the Office of
the paper, and rally at Galveston, with rifle, pistols, ammunition,
horse, pack, and a bowie, on Tuesday, the 8th instant."

I 'm sure I knew that paragraph off by heart before bedtime, but just
as I have seen a stupid man commit a proposition in Euclid to
memory,--without ever being able to work it. I was totally at a loss
what to make of the meaning of the expedition. It was, to say the least,
somewhat mysterious; and the whole being addressed to "go-ahead ones,"
who were to come with rifles and bowie-knives, showed that they were not
likely to be missionaries. There was one wonderful clause about it,--it
smacked of adventure. There was a roving wildness in the very thought
which pleased me, and I straightway opened a consultation with myself
how I could compass the object. My stock of money had dwindled down to
four dollars; and although I still possessed some of the best articles
of my wardrobe, the greater portion had been long since disposed of.

Alas! the more I thought over it, the more hopeless did my hope of
journey appear,--I made every imaginable good bargain in my fancy; I
disposed of old waistcoats and gaiters as if they had been the honored
vestments of heroes and sages; I knocked down my shoes at prices that
old Frederick's boots would n't have fetched; and yet, with all this, I
fell far short of a sum sufficient to purchase my equipment,--in fact,
I saw that if I compassed the "bowie-knife," it would be the full extent
of my powers. I dwelt upon this theme so long that I grew fevered and
excited: I got to believe that here was a great career opening before
me, to which one petty, miserable obstacle opposed itself. I was like
a man deterred from undertaking an immense journey, by the trouble of
crossing a rivulet.

In this frame of mind I went to bed, but only to rove over my rude
fancies, and, in a state between sleep and waking, to imagine that
some tiny hand held me back, and prevented me ascending a path on which
Fortune kept waving her hand for me to follow. When day broke, I found
myself sitting at my window, with the newspaper