Becher had gone to New Orleans, and the rest gradually dispersed to all quarters of the compass. Hehrmann saw them, one after another, take their leave, or even forsake the place without leave-taking; but when he was left almost alone, and wished himself to seek a better, healthier home, when his last friend had disappeared with Wolfgang, who had cleared out for Missouri as late as seven months since, he found, to his alarm, that he no longer possessed the means. He had given away everything--sacrificed all, in order that he might not see his favourite plan, the union of Germans in, a fraternal society, founder. He had, when they learnt from Buffalo that the things left behind there were gone, and could not be traced, and the landlord pretended to know nothing about anything of the kind--when subsequently link after link of the chain fell away, when those forsook him on whom he had calculated most--even when ridicule or contemptuous laughter met his ear, he had never hesitated. "We are melted down to a few," he used to say to those few, "but we can yet prove that people who religiously are in earnest in the good cause, can carry it through in spite of the greatest difficulties." But he soon discovered that those who continued with him were, for the most part, merely compelled to do so, because they did not possess a single dollar wherewith to pay their passage anywhere else, and gladly seized upon the first opportunity which offered, without troubling themselves much as to what became of Pastor Hehrmann and his family, whom they left alone in the swamps. One only continued with them honestly and faithfully--one only never forgot how well, how kindly he had been taken by the hand by this family, when he himself stood alone and friendless. This was Charles, the former glazier's apprentice, and richly did he requite all the benefits he had received, especially during the past summer, when Pastor Hehrmann, himself, was confined to his bed for weeks, by fever. Oh, how often, how ardently had they longed for Werner to come back--that he might keep his word, and seek them again in their now disconsolate solitude! Alas! the mother had already begun to doubt, and had said-- "You'll see, my child; he has acted like the rest of them; he has gone off, far, far away, and no longer thinks of those, formerly his so dear friends, whom he has left behind."