York. The task was difficult, and
required a man of health, strength, judgment, and nerve. The trip going
would require two months, and the horses must be kept together, fed,
cared for, and, above all, protected night and day from horse thieves,
until after the Alleghanies were crossed. The horses were driven loose
in herds of one hundred or more. Three men constituted a crew. In this
instance Dic was to be in charge, and two rough horse-boys would be his
assistants. It would have been impossible to _drive_ the horses over the
fenceless roads and through the leagues of trackless forest; therefore,
they were led. The men would take turns about riding in advance, and the
man leading would continually whistle a single shrill note which the
horses soon learned to follow. Should the whistling cease for a moment,
the horses would stop and perhaps stampede. This might mean forty-eight
hours of constant work in gathering the drove, with perhaps the loss of
one or more. If you will, for one hour, whistle a shrill note loud
enough to reach the ears of a herd of trampling, neighing horses, you
will discover that even that task, which is the smallest part of horse
"leading," is an exhausting operation.

The work was hard, but the pay was good, and Dic was delighted with the
opportunity. One of its greatest attractions to him was the fact that he
would see something of the world. Billy Little urged him to accept the
offer.

"A man," said he, "estimates his own stature by comparing it with those
about him, and the most fatal mistake he can make is to underestimate
his size. Self-conceit is ugly, but it never injured any one. Modesty
would have ruined Napoleon himself. The measure of a man, like the
length of a cloth-yard, depends upon the standard. Go away from here,
Dic. Find your true standard. Measure yourself and return, if you wish.
This place is as good as another, if a man knows himself; if he doesn't,
he is apt to be deceived by the littleness of things about him. Yet
there are great things here, too--greater, in some respects, than any to
be found in New York; but the great things here are possibilities. Of
course, possibilities are but the raw material. They must be
manufactured--achieved. But achievement, my boy, achievement! that's the
whole thing, after all. What would Caesar Germanicus and Napoleon have
been without possibilities? A ready-made opportunity is a good thing in
its way, but it is the creation of opportunit