I endeavored once more to approach the window, but the crowd had already increased considerably; and I had nothing for it but to go in and buy the paper, which now had taken a strong hold upon me.
Cheap as was the paper, it cost me that day's dinner; and it was with a very great anxiety to test the value of my sacrifice that I hastened to the little miserable den which I had hired as my sleeping-place.
Once within, I fastened the door, and, spreading out the journal on my bed, proceeded to search for the Texan paragraph. It was headed in capitals, and easily found. It ran thus:—
“WANTED—A few downright, go-ahead ones, to join an excursion into the One-Star Republic,—the object being to push a way down South, and open a new trade-line for home doings. Applicants to address the Office of the paper, and rally at Galveston, with rifle, pistols, ammunition, horse, pack, and a bowie, on Tuesday, the 8th instant.”
I 'm sure I knew that paragraph off by heart before bedtime, but just as I have seen a stupid man commit a proposition in Euclid to memory,—without ever being able to work it. I was totally at a loss what to make of the meaning of the expedition. It was, to say the least, somewhat mysterious; and the whole being addressed to “go-ahead ones,” who were to come with rifles and bowie-knives, showed that they were not likely to be missionaries. There was one wonderful clause about it,—it smacked of adventure. There was a roving wildness in the very thought which pleased me, and I straightway opened a consultation with myself how I could compass the object. My stock of money had dwindled down to four dollars; and although I still possessed some of the best articles of my wardrobe, the greater portion had been long since disposed of.
Alas! the more I thought over it, the more hopeless did my hope of journey appear,—I made every imaginable good bargain in my fancy; I disposed of old waistcoats and gaiters as if they had been the honored vestments of heroes and sages; I knocked down my shoes at prices that old Frederick's boots would n't have fetched; and yet, with all this, I fell far short of a sum sufficient to purchase my equipment,—in fact, I saw that if I compassed the “bowie-knife,” it would be the full extent of my powers. I dwelt upon this theme so long that I grew fevered and excited: I got to believe that here was a great career opening before me, to which one petty, miserable obstacle opposed itself. I was like a man deterred from undertaking an immense journey, by the trouble of crossing a rivulet.
In this frame of mind I went to bed, but only to rove over my rude fancies, and, in a state between sleep and waking, to imagine that some tiny hand held me back, and prevented me ascending a path on which Fortune kept waving her hand for me to follow. When day broke, I found myself sitting at my window, with the newspaper in my hands,—though how I came there, or how long I had spent in that attitude, I cannot say; I only know that my limbs were excessively cold, and my temples hot, and that while my hands were benumbed and swollen, my heart beat faster and fuller than I had ever felt it before.
“Now for the 'Picayune,'” said I, starting from my chair; “though I never may make the journey, at least I 'll ask the road.”
