"It will be next year first," said he, as he drew one of his large mastiffs towards him, and patted his head; "there are always on those occasions so many things to look after, that one hardly knows where to begin or when one has done, and as I have got to cross the Mississippi, why I intend to take my time, and to get done with it all at once. To go back such a distance for something forgotten would be too tedious. How many cattle will you have--a hundred perhaps? The more you can get at first, the more advantageous for you, for the more rapidly and the more numerously does it increase, and it costs you little or nothing." "That is very true," Wolfgang now took up the discourse; "if one is minded to stay in the place, or at all events in the neighbourhood where one is; but I would by no means advise the gentlemen to do that. The soil is good, but the location is unhealthy, and it will be fortunate for them if they can stand it during the summer; next fall they must seek out a healthier climate, and much cattle would only be an incumbrance to them. Where do you go to?" "Into the Ozark Hills; but why will you not at once quit this part of the country, if you are already firmly convinced that you will not remain here long? I should go at once, for time here is money. Calculate merely the produce in cattle that you would gain by it." "You are right," Siebert now said; "but where are we to find a neighbourhood directly that would suit us, particularly as we are unacquainted with the country; and then a removal with such a number of people is easier spoken of than executed." "And how we have worked at our place already!" suggested Herbold; "how many trees have we felled!" "Well, well, that would be the least part of the business," smiled Stevenson; "there can't be so very many in three weeks; besides, all that is not lost, it has been useful to you for practice, and cannot prove otherwise than beneficial hereafter. But I quite agree with Mr. Wolfgang. If you are not unanimous among yourselves whether to stay or go, as it almost seems to me is the case, why then only take some four or five milch kine and calves, so that you may have milk for the children and the sick, at all events three or four horses besides, and no hogs, they would only be a plague to you, and let that suffice for your beginning in cattle management."