At last the valley became too crowded.  There was no longer enough of everything for all, so that quarrelling and even fighting grew almost into a habit; the heads of families and the wise elders did their best to keep the peace, but were not much listened to.  At the same time the younger people were beginning to wonder what there was on the other side of the mountains.  Once in a while a huntsman, in the excitement of following his game, would climb to some high point, from which he would look down into other valleys, with more mountains beyond.  Then he would take up some comrade with him, and they would stand there long, gazing and wondering.  Then some of the bolder, more curious boys and youths had followed the river into the narrow passage it had broken for itself through the mountains.  The first who ventured had not gone very far.  They had felt dreadfully frightened and lonesome in that dark, wild pass, between the two rugged rocky walls, so high that they seemed to join at the top, showing only a little strip of blue sky, and with the water foaming and roaring deep down below, and they had been glad to get back into the safety and sunshine of their own valley.  But they had gone again, many together, and got farther,—­for many will be brave where one is scared,—­and it became known for a positive fact that there was a way out of the valley.  Of course there was much curiosity to know whither it led and what the land on the other side might be like.

So it came to pass that some young families, who were going to set up new homesteads of their own, instead of crowding into some of the scantily measured lots of poor soil which were all that was left in the valley, collected the household goods and the domestic animals which were their due share of the community’s property, and started off through the mountain pass, following the river.  They were never heard of more.

Others did the same.  And still others, again and again.  It was like bees swarming.  From time to time children, brothers, cousins said good-by and went.  None ever came back.  None ever were heard from.  All that was known of them was that they did not all go the same way.  Some went west, and some south; and some northwest or southwest.  And they never met or heard from one another, either.  They became and remained total strangers; did not even know of one another’s existence.  But all treasured memories of the old home—­the latest gone, of course, more than those that went first, who naturally forgot most in the course of time.

The years went by—­many hundreds of years; and great changes came over the world and the people that lived in it.  They who used to keep much to themselves and look on one another with distrust and dislike were brought together in many ways; they made war, they traded, they travelled, and, either as friends or foes, learned to know and take interest in one another.  What struck people most at first was how different they were, in looks and in manners,