would often escape and
wander for days in the forests, until hunger would bring him home again.
At last, he returned to his adopted father, who was now satisfied that
his thoughts were in the wilderness, and that, in the bustle of a large
city and restraint of civilised life, he would not live, but linger on
till he drooped and died.

This discovery was a sad blow to the kind old man, who had fondly
anticipated that the youngster would be a kind and grateful companion to
him, when age should make him feel the want of friendship; but he was a
just man, and reflecting that perhaps a short year of rambling would
cure him, he was the first to propose it. Young Finn was grateful;
beholding the tears of his venerable protector, he would have remained
and attended him till the hour of his death; but the Quaker would not
permit him, he gave him his best horse, and furnished him with arms and
money. At that time, the fame of Daniel Boone had filled the Eastern
States, and young Finn had read with avidity the adventures of that bold
pioneer. Hearing that he was now on the western borders of Kentucky,
making preparations for emigration farther west, into the very heart of
the Indian country, he resolved to join him and share the dangers of his
expedition.

The life of Boone is too well known for me to describe this expedition.
Suffice it to say, that, once in Missouri, Finn conceived and executed
the idea of making alone a trip across the Rocky Mountains, to the very
borders of the Pacific Ocean. Strange to say, he scarcely remembers
anything of that first trip, which lasted eleven months.

The animals had not yet been scared out of the wilderness; water was
found twice every day; the vine grew luxuriantly in the forests, and the
caravans of the white men had not yet destroyed the patches of plums and
nuts which grew wild in the prairies.

Finn says he listened to the songs of the birds, and watched the sport
of the deer, the buffaloes, and wild horses, in a sort of dreaming
existence, fancying that he heard voices in the streams, in the foliage
of the trees, in the caverns of the mountains; his wild imagination
sometimes conjuring up strange and beautiful spirits of another world,
who were his guardians, and who lulled him asleep every evening with
music and perfumes.

I have related this pretty nearly in the very terms of our host, and
many of his listeners have remarked, at different times, that when he
was dwelling u