Lewis Rand | Page 3

floor,--no brush at all, just
fine grass, with flowers in it like pinks in a garden. So we smoked the

peace pipe with the Chickasaws, and I hung a wampum belt with fine
words, and we went on, the next day, walking over strawberries so
thick that our moccasins were stained red. At noon we overtook a party
of boatmen from the Ohio,--tall men they were, with beards, and dark
and dirty as Indians,--and we kept company with them through the
country of the Chickasaws and the Choctaws until we came to a high
bluff, and saw the Mississippi before us, brown and full and marked
with drifting trees, and up the river the white houses of Natchez. There
we camped until we made out the flat-boat,--General Wilkinson's boat,
all laden with tobacco and flour and bacon, and just a few Kentucks
with muskets,--that the Spaniards at Natchez had been fools enough to
let pass! We hailed that boat, and it came up beneath the cottonwoods,
and I went aboard with the letters from Louisville, and on we went,
down the river, past the great woods and the strange little towns, and
the cotton-fields and the sugar-canes, and the moss hanging like
banners from taller trees than this gum, to New Orleans. And there the
Intendant would have laid hands on our cargo and sent every mother's
son of us packing, but Miro, that was governor, stood our friend, being
frightened indeed of what Kentucky might do if put to it! And there, on
the levee, we sold that tobacco and flour and bacon; and the tobacco
which we sold at home for shillings and pence, we sold at New Orleans
for joes and doubloons. Ay, ay, and not one picayune of duty did we
pay! Ay, and we opened the Mississippi!"
The speaker paused to take from his pouch several leaves of tobacco,
and to roll them deftly into a long cigar. The boy rose to throw more
wood upon the fire, then sat again at the trader's feet, and with his chin
in his hand stared into the glowing hollows.
"The West!" said Gaudylock, between slow puffs of smoke. "Kentucky
and the Ohio and the Mississippi, and then Louisiana and all that lies
beyond, and Mexico and its gold! Ha! the Mississippi open from its
source--and the Lord in Heaven knows where that may be--to the last
levee! and not a Spaniard to stop a pirogua, and right to trade in every
port, and no lingo but plain English, and Mexico like a ripe apple,--just
a touch of the bough, and there's the gold in hand! If I were a dreamer, I
would dream of the West."

"Folk have always dreamed of the West," said the boy. "Sailors and
kings, and men with their fortune to make. I've read about Cortez and
Pizarro,--it would be fine to be like that!"
"I thought you wanted to study law."
"I do; but I could be a great soldier, too."
Gaudylock laughed. "You would trap all the creatures in the wood!
Well, live long enough, and you'll hear a drum beat. They're restless,
restless, yonder on the rivers! But they'll need the lawyers, too. Just see
what the lawyers did when we fought the British! Mr. Henry and Mr.
Jefferson--"
The boy put forth a sudden hand, gathered to him a pine bough, and
with it smote the red coals of the fire. "Oh!" he cried, "from morn till
night my father keeps me in the fields. It's tobacco! tobacco! tobacco!
And I want to go to school--I want to go to school!"
"That's a queer wanting," said the other thoughtfully. "I've wanted fire
when I was cold, and venison when I was hungry, and liquor when I
was in company, and money when I was gaming, and a woman when
the moon was shining and I wished to talk,--but I have never wanted to
go to school. A schollard sees a wall every time he raises his head. I
like the open."
"There are walls in the forest," answered the boy, "and I do not want to
be a tobacco-roller! I want to study law!"
The hunter laughed. "Ho! A lawyer among the Rands! I reckon you
take after your mother's folk!"
The boy looked at him wistfully. "I reckon I do," he assented. "But my
name is Rand."
"There are worse folk than the Rands," said the woodsman. "I've never
known one to let go, once he had man or beast by the throat! Silent and
holdfast and deadly to anger--that's the Rands. If Gideon wants tobacco

and you want learning, there'll be a tussle!"
"My father's a tyrant!" cried the boy passionately. "If he doesn't keep
his hands off me, I'll--I'll kill him!"
Gaudylock took the cigarro from his lips. "You're