112 A VERY YOUNG MAN. 



to St Louis on an alleged hunting expedition to the plains. 

 He obtained an outfit at St Louis, and was proceeding by 

 river steamboat to the desert of the red man and bison, 

 when of course he had to mingle in the society around 

 him in the saloon, which is generally of a very mixed 

 character, and some of his apparent friends neither 

 lost their opportunity nor mistook their man. Having 

 been, as they say in those parts, " pretty considerable 

 down on him " as to the hardships and horrors that would 

 attend his journey when on the prairies, one of his attent 

 ive friends, on finding that a " con-si-de-rable " impres 

 sion had been achieved on the mind of the English travel 

 ler, at once became seized with a roving as well as an 

 amiable desire to rescue him from danger and difficulty 

 by taking his outfit then and there off his hands, and go 

 ing to the plains in his stead. This kind offer having 

 been embraced by the very young man, an agreement was 

 at once entered into between him and this gentle 

 man a passenger, of course by accident, on board the 

 steamer, much addicted to cards and dice, as well as 

 deeply interested in the fair management of a lottery, at 

 which the greatest bargains were to be won on very small 

 entries. 



A deed of sale, but, alas ! a very one-sided one, having 

 been on the spot arranged, the casual acquaintance and 

 very kind friend of this young man at once gave him a 

 cheque on the firm of Springfield and Co., St Louis, when, 

 having surrendered his outfit into the hands of the ami 

 able stranger, the young man, on the first favourable op 

 portunity, reversed his line of progression, and returned 

 to the town he had left, wherein resided the copartners 

 who were to honour the bill of exchange of which he had 

 become possessed. Reader ! dear reader, perhaps you 



