rifle. It was a sad thought; but while he meditated
he thought upon his mother. "After all," he murmured,
"there must be happiness
without
the rifle, and youth,
and health, and the prairie! My mother's happy, yet
she don't shoot, or ride like wild-fire over the plains."
Then that word which had been sent so sweetly to him
through her hand came again to his mind, "My son,
give me thine heart;" and as he read God's Book, he