have."

"Only they happen to be in possession," replied Master Raymond, drily.

"Are they in possession? So far as they are actually in possession, I
admit their right. But do you seriously mean that a few hundred or
thousand of wild heathen, have a right to prior occupancy to the whole
North American continent? It seems to me absurd?"

"A relative of mine has ten square miles in Scotland that he never
occupies, in your sense of the word any more than your red-men do; and
yet he is held to have a valid right to it, against the hundreds of
peasants who would like to enter in and take possession."

"Oh, plenty of things are done wrong in the old world," replied Master
Putnam; "that is why we Puritans are over here. But still the fact
remains that the earth is the Lord's and that He intended it for His
children's use; and no merely legal or personal right can be above that.
If ever the time comes that your relative's land is really needed by the
people at large, why then some way will have to be contrived to get hold
of it for them."

"The Putnam family have a good many broad acres too," said Master
Raymond, with a smile, looking around him.

"Oh, you cannot scare me," replied his friend, also smiling. "What is
sauce for the Campbell goose is sauce for the Putnam gander. If the time
ever comes when the public good requires that the broad lands of the
Putnams--if there be any Putnams at that time--have to be appropriated
to meet the wants of their fellow men, then the broad Putnam lands will
have to go like the rest, I imagine. We have taken them from the
Indians, just as the Normans took them from the Saxons--and as the
Saxons took them from the Danes and the ancient inhabitants--by the
strong hand. But the sword can give no right--save as the claim of the
public good is behind it. Show me that the public good requires it, and
I am willing that the title-deeds for my own share of the broad Putnam
lands shall be burnt up tomorrow."

"I believe you, my dear friend," said Master Raymond, gazing with
admiration upon the manly, glowing face of this nature's nobleman. "And
I am inclined to think that your whole view of the matter is correct.
But, coming back to our first point, do you know of any savage that we
could trust to guide us safely to the settlements on the Hudson?"

"If old king Philip, whose head has been savagely exposed to all
weathers on the gibbet at Plymouth for the last sixteen years, were
alive, some