“Lost!  It is rather wonderful that, after the lapse of two thousand years and more, so much should remain.  Whichever way I look, signs of these people’s origin beset me.  You have read your Bible, Margery—­which I am sorry to say all on this frontier have not—­but you have read your Bible, and one can make an allusion to you with some satisfaction.  Now, let me ask you if you remember such a thing as the scape-goat of the ancient Jews.  It is to be found in Leviticus, and is one of those mysterious customs with which that extraordinary book is full.”

“Leviticus is a book I never read but once, for we do not read it in our New England schools.  But I do remember that the Jews were commanded to let one of two goats go, from which practice it has, I believe, been called a scape-goat.”

“Well,” said le Bourdon, simply, “what a thing is ‘l’arnin’!’ Now, this is all news to me, though I have heard of ‘scape-goats,’ and talked of ‘scape-goats’ a thousand times!  There’s a meanin’ to everything, I find; and I do not look upon this idea of the lost tribes as half as strange as I did before I l’arnt this!”

Margery had not fallen in love with the bee-hunter for his biblical knowledge, else might her greater information have received a rude shock by this mark of simplicity; but instead of dwelling on this proof of le Bourdon’s want of “schooling,” her active mind was more disposed to push the allusion to scape-goats to some useful conclusion.

“And what of the goat, Mr. Amen?” she asked; “and how can it belong to anything here?”

“Why were all those goats turned into the woods and deserts, in the olden time, Margery?  Doubtless to provide food for the ten tribes, when these should be driven forth by conquerors and hard task-masters.  Time, and climate, and a difference of food, has altered them, as they have changed the Jews themselves, though they still retain the cleft hoof, the horns, the habits, and the general characteristics of the goats of Arabia.  Yes; naturalists will find in the end, that the varieties of the deer of this continent, particularly the antelope, are nothing but the scape-goats of the ancient world, altered and perhaps improved by circumstances.”

As this was much the highest flight the good missionary had ever yet taken, not trifling was the astonishment of his young friends thereat.  Touching the Jews, le Bourdon did not pretend to, or in fact did not possess much knowledge; but when the question was reduced down to one of venison, or bears’ meat, or bisons’ humps, with the exception of the professed hunters and trappers, few knew more about them all than he did himself.  That the deer, or even the antelopes of America ever had been goats, he did not believe; nor was he at all backward in letting his dissent to such a theory be known.