to a land of better promise. Among
them was a rugged, freckled, red-headed lad, well along in his teens, of
the name of Dennis, who wore a tall beaver hat, tilted saucily on one
side of his head, and a ragged blue coat with brass buttons, as he walked
beside the oxen, whip in hand, with trousers tucked in the tops of his
big cowhide boots. There was also a handsome young man in this party of
the name of John McNeil, who wore a ruffled shirt and swallow-tail coat,
now much soiled by the journey. He listened to Samson's account of the
Sangamon country and said that he thought he would go there. He had
traded hats on the way with Dennis, who had been deeply impressed by the
majestic look of the beaver and had given a silver breast pin and fifteen
shillings to boot.

A jolly lad was Dennis, who danced jigs, on a flat rock by the riverside,
as Samson played _The Irish Washerman_ and _The Fisher's Hornpipe_. In
the midst of the fun a puff of wind snatched the tall beaver hat from his
head and whirled it over the side of the cliff into the foliage of a
clump of cedars growing out of the steep cliff-side, ten feet or so below
its top. Before any one could stop him the brave Irish lad had scrambled
down the steep to the cedars--a place of some peril, for they hung over
a precipice more than a hundred feet deep above the river. He got his
treasure, but Samson had to help him back with a rope.

The latter told of the veiled bear, and when the story was finished he
said to the Irish lad: "It will not do you any harm to remember that it
is easier to get into trouble than to get out of it. In my opinion one
clean-hearted Irish boy is worth more than all the beaver hats in
creation."

Sarah gave the Irish family a good supply of cookies and jerked venison
before she bade them good-by.

When our travelers left, next morning, they stopped for a last look at
the great Falls.

"Children," said Samson, "I want you to take a good look at that. It's
the most wonderful thing in the world and maybe you'll never see it
again."

"The Indians used to think that the Great Spirit was in this river," said
Sarah.

"Kind o' seems to me they were right," Samson remarked thoughtfully.
"Kind o' seems as if the great spirit of America was in that water. It
moves on in the way it wills and nothing can stop it. Everything in its
current goes along with it."

"And only the strong can stand the journey," said Sarah.

These words were no doubt insp