d, were permitted to
graze. The ten baggage wagons or "ships of the plain," as they were
sometimes called--came to anchor in a sea of verdure. They were ranged
in a circle, the interior space being occupied as a camping-ground. Then
began preparations for supper. Some of the party were sent for water. A
fire was built, and the travelers, with a luxurious enjoyment of rest,
sank upon the grass.

Donald Ferguson looked thoughtfully over the vast expanse of unsettled
prairie, and said to Tom, "It's a great country, Tom. There seems no end
to it."

"That's the way I felt when I was plodding along to-day through the
mud," said Tom, laughing.

"It's because the soil is so rich," said the Scotchman. "It'll be a
great farming country some day, I'm thinking."

"I suppose the soil isn't so rich in Scotland, Mr. Ferguson?"

"No, my lad. It's rocky and barren, and covered with dry heather; but it
produces rare men, for all that."

Mr. Ferguson was patriotic to the backbone. He would not claim for
Scotland what she could not fairly claim; but he was all ready with some
compensating claim.

"How do you stand the walking, Mr. Ferguson?"

"I'm getting used to it."

"Then it's more than I am. I think it's beastly."

These words were not uttered by Tom, but by rather a dandified-looking
young man, who came up limping. He was from Boston, and gave his name as
Lawrence Peabody. He had always lived in Boston, where he had been
employed in various genteel avocations; but in an evil hour he had been
lured from his comfortable home by the seductive cry of gold, and,
laying down his yardstick, had set out for California across the plains.
He was a slender young man, with limbs better fitted for dancing than
for tramping across the prairie, and he felt bitterly the fatigue of the
journey.

"Are you tired, Mr. Peabody?" asked Tom.

"I am just about dead. I didn't bargain for walking all the way across
the prairies. Why couldn't old Fletcher let me ride?"

"The oxen have had all they could do to-day to draw the wagons through
the mud."

"Look at those boots," said the Bostonian ruefully, pointing to a pair
of light calfskin boots, which were so overlaid with mud that it was
hard to tell what was their original color. "I bought those boots in
Boston only two weeks ago. Everybody called them stylish. Now they are
absolutely disreputable."

"It seems to me, my friend," said the Scotchman, "that you did not show
much sagacity in s