s for
the glorious scenes of Palestine, full of memories that alone satisfy
the soul's longings, there are days when I pant for the solitude of
the vast savannas of the New World. I feel as if to know one's self
thoroughly, one's nature should be tested by the perils and exigencies
of a life hourly making some demand on courage and ingenuity. The
hunter's life does this. What say you,--shall we try it?"

"I 'm ready," was the calm reply.

"We have means for such an enterprise, have we not? You told me, some
short time past, that nearly the whole of our last year's allowance was
untouched."

"Yes, it's all there to the good," said Billy; "a good round sum too."

"Let us get rid of all needless equipment, then," cried Massy, "and only
retain what beseems a prairie life. Sell everything, or give it away at
once."

"Leave all that to me,--I'll manage everything; only say when you make
up your mind."

"But it is made up. I have resolved on the step. Few can decide so
readily; for I leave neither home nor country behind."

"Don't say that," burst in Billy; "here's myself, the poorest crayture
that walks the earth, that never knew where he was born or who nursed
him, yet even to me there's the tie of a native land,--there's the soil
that reared warriors and poets and orators that I heard of when a
child, and gloried in as a man; and, better than that, there's the green
meadows and the leafy valleys where kind-hearted men and women live and
labor, spakin' our own tongue and feelin' our own feelin's, and that, if
we saw to-morrow, we 'd know were our own,--heart and hand our own.
The smell of the yellow furze, under a griddle of oaten bread, would be
sweeter to me than all the gales of Araby the Blest; for it would remind
me of the hearth I had my share of, and the roof that covered me when I
was alone in the world."

The boy buried his face in his hands and made no answer. At last,
raising up his head, he said,--

"Let us try this life; let us see if action be not better than mere
thought. The efforts of intellect seem to inspire a thirst there is no
slaking. Sleep brings no rest after them. I long for the sense of some
strong peril which, over, gives the proud feeling of a goal reached,--a
feat accomplished."

"I'll go wherever you like; I'll be whatever you want me," said Billy,
affectionately.

"Let us lose no time, then. I would not that my present ardor should
cool ere we have begun our plan. What day is thi