 of the soil, and shortly after a
town-officer. By that progressive change in fortune, which in the republicks is
often seen to be so singularly accompanied by a corresponding improvement in
knowledge and self-respect, he went on, from step to step, until his wife
enjoyed the maternal delight of seeing her children placed far beyond the danger
of returning to that state from which both their parents had issued. Paul is,
actually, at this moment, a member of the lower branch of the Legislature of the
State where he has long resided, and he is even notorious for making speeches,
that have a tendency to put that deliberative body in good humour, and which as
they are based on great practical knowledge suited to the condition of the
country, possess a merit that is much wanted in many more subtle and fine spun
theories that are daily heard in similar assemblies, to issue from the lips of
certain instinctive politicians. But all these happy fruits were the results of
much care, and of a long period of time. Middleton, who fills, with a credit
better suited to the difference in their educations, a seat in a far higher
branch of Legislative Authority, is the source from which we have derived most
of the intelligence necessary to compose our legend. In addition to what he has
related of Paul, and of his own continued happiness, he has added a short
narrative of what took place in a subsequent visit to the Prairies, with which,
as we conceive it a suitable termination to what has gone before, we shall judge
it wise to conclude our labors.
    In the autumn of the year that succeeded the season in which the preceding
events occurred, the young man, still in the military service, found himself on
the waters of the Missouri, at a point not far remote from the Pawnee towns.
Released from any immediate calls of duty, and strongly urged to the measure by
Paul, who was in his company, he determined to take horse and cross the country,
to visit the Partisan and to inquire into the fate of his friend the trapper. As
his train was suited to his functions and rank, the journey was effected, with
the privations and hardships that are the accompanyments of all travelling in a
wild, but, without any of those dangers and alarms that marked his former
passage through the same regions. When within a proper distance, he dispatched
an Indian runner belonging to a friendly tribe, to announce the approach of
himself and party, continuing his route at a deliberate pace, in order that the
intelligence might as was customary precede his arrival
