ghty fall.

"D'you know, Joe," said Frank, leaning back against a tree stem, as he
gazed meditatively into into the fire after supper was concluded, "it
has often struck me that men are very foolish for not taking full
possession of the splendid world, in which they have been placed."

Frank paused a few moments, but the observation not being sufficiently
definite for Joe, who was deep in the enjoyment of his first pipe, no
reply was made beyond an interjectional "h'm."

"Just look around you," pursued Frank, waving his hand towards the
landscape, "at this magnificent country; what timber, what soil, what an
amount of game, what lakes, what rivers, what facilities for farming,
manufacturing, fishing,--everything, in fact, that is calculated to
gladden the heart of man."

"Includin' gold," suggested Joe.

"Including gold," assented Frank; and there it all lies--has lain since
creation--hundreds of thousands of acres of splendid land _unoccupied_.

"Ha! there's a screw loose somewhere," said Joe, taking the pipe from
his lips and looking at it earnestly, as if the remark were addressed to
it, "somethin' out o' j'int--a plank started, so to speak--cer'nly."

"No doubt of it," said Frank; "and the broad acres which we now look
upon, as well as those over which we have lately travelled, are as
nothing compared with the other waste but fertile lands in America, on
which hundreds of thousands of the human race might live happily. Yet,
strange to say, men seem to prefer congregating together in little
worlds of brick, stone, and mortar, living tier upon tier above each
other's heads, breathing noxious gases instead of the scent of flowers,
treading upon mud, stone, and dust, instead of green grass, and dwelling
under a sky of smoke instead of bright blue ether--and this, too, in the
face of the Bible command to `go forth and replenish the earth.'"

"Yes, there's great room," said Joe, "for the settin' up of a gin'ral
enlightenment an' universal emigration society, but I raither think it
wouldn't pay."

"I know it wouldn't, but why not?" demanded Frank.

"Ah, why not?" repeated Joe.

As neither of them appeared to be able to answer the question, they both
remained for some time in a profound reverie, Frank gazing as he was
wont to do into the fire, and Joe staring through smoke of his own
creation at the vaquero, who reclined on the opposite side of the fire
enjoying the tobacco to the full by letting it puff slowly