g up lands, and
mentioned it to him. He smiled, and pointing above, said, 'My wealth
lies not in this world.'"

From Greenville, Crockett pressed on about fifty or sixty miles through
a country interspersed withe forests and treeless prairies, until he
reached Fulton. He had a letter of introduction to one of the prominent
gentlemen here, and was received with marked distinction. After a short
visit he disposed of his horse; he took a steamer to descend the river
several hundred miles to Natchitoches, pronounced Nakitosh, a small
straggling village of eight hundred inhabitants, on the right bank of
the Red River, about two hundred miles from its entrance into the
Mississippi.

In descending the river there was a juggler on board, who performed
many skilful juggling tricks, and by various feats of gambling won much
money from his dupes. Crockett was opposed to gambling in all its
forms. Becoming acquainted with the juggler and, finding him at heart a
well-meaning, good-natured fellow, he endeavored to remonstrate with
him upon his evil practices.

"I told him," says Crockett, "that it was a burlesque on human nature,
that an able-bodied man, possessed of his full share of good sense,
should voluntarily debase himself, and be indebted for subsistence to
such a pitiful artifice.

"'But what's to be done, Colonel?' says he. 'I'm in the slough of
despond, up to the very chin. A miry and slippery path to travel.'

"'Then hold your head up,' says I, 'before the slough reaches your
lips.'

"'But what's the use?' says he: 'it's utterly impossible for me to wade
through; and even if I could, I should be in such a dirty plight, that
it would defy all the waters in the Mississippi to wash me clean again.
No,' he added in a desponding tone, 'I should be like a live eel in a
frying-pan, Colonel, sort of out of my element, if I attempted to live
like an honest man at this time o' day.'

"'That I deny. It is never too late to become honest,' said I. 'But
even admit what you say to be true--that you cannot live like an honest
man--you have at least the next best thing in your power, and no one
can say nay to it.'

"'And what is that?'

"'Die like a brave one. And I know not whether, in the eyes of the
world, a brilliant death is not preferred to an obscure life of
rectitude. Most men are remembered as they died, and not as they lived.
We gaze with admiration upon the glories of the setting sun, yet
scarcely bestow a passing