on our shifting frontiers the race has
been hammered and tempered to a cutting edge.

That insane hope of better things--the same which beckoned on the
Israelites and the Pilgrim Fathers; restraints of law and society,
which in Egypt made the Israelite a slave, in England gave the Puritan
to the pillory and the stocks, and in this western world of ours took
the form of a hollow squire, founder by letters patent of a landed
oligarchy--so that the bold and venturesome sought homes in the
unsquired wilderness; and restlessness, that quality which marks the
most notable difference between man and sandstone. Restlessness,
shaking off restraints, insane hopes--in that cadence of ideas what is
there of haunting, echolike and familiar? Restraints of society? When
the very stones of the streets shrieked at him the name of that
town--Independence! Now we know the words that haunted us: "Life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness!" Never was echo clearer.
The emigrants were there in exercise of those unavoidable rights.
Not happiness, or the overtaking of happiness; the pursuit of
happiness--the insane hope of a better condition of life.

That which perplexed Parkman looked upon, disapproving, was the
settlement of America--the greatest upbuilding of recorded time; and
the prime motive of that great migration was the motive of all
migrations--the search for food and land. They went west for food.
What they did there was to work; if you require a monument--take a
good look!

Here is the record of a few late camp fires of the Great Trek.

I

"Why-Why had been principally beaten about the face, and his
injuries, therefore, were slight."
--_The Romance of the First Radical._

"A fine face, marred by an expression of unscrupulous integrity."
--_Credit Lost._

The lady listened with fluttering attention. The lady was sweet and
twenty, and the narrator--myself--was spurred to greater effort.
Suddenly a thought struck her. It was a severe blow. She sat up
straight, she stiffened her lips to primness, her fine eyes darkened
with suspicion, her voice crisped to stern inquiry.

"I suppose, when Sunday came, you kept right on working?"

It was an acid supposition. Her dear little nose squinched to express
some strong emotion--loving-kindness, perhaps; her dear little upper
lip curled ominous. She looked as though she might bite.

"Kept right