ressing the letter in the care of my
publishers, Messrs. Harper & Brothers, who have kindly agreed promptly
to forward all such communications to me wheresoever I may chance to
be at the time.

I should add that my hardships during that Winter at Track's End did
not cure me of my roving bent, though you might think the contrary
should have been the case. Later, on several occasions, I adventured
into wild parts, and had experiences no whit less remarkable than
those at Track's End, notably when with the late Capt. Nathan Archway,
master of the _Belle of Prairie du Chien_ packet, we descended into
Frontenac Cave, and, there in the darkness (aided somewhat by Gil
Dauphin), disputed possession of that subterranean region with no less
a character than the notorious Isaac Liverpool, to the squeaking of a
million bats. And I wish hereby to give notice that no one is to put
into Print such accounts of that occurrence as I may have been heard
to relate from time to time around camp-fires, on shipboard, and so
forth, since I mean, with the kind help of Mr. Carruth, to publish
forth the facts concerning it in another Book; and that before long.

JUDSON PITCHER.

LITTLE DRUM, FLAMINGO KEY, _July_, 1911.

TRACKS END

TRACK'S END

CHAPTER I

Something about my Home and Track's End: with how I leave the one and
get acquainted with Pike at the other.

When I left home to shift for myself I was eighteen years old, and, I
suppose, no weakling; though it seems to me now that I was a mere boy.
I liked school well enough, but rather preferred horses; and a pen
seems to me a small thing for a grown man, which I am now, to be
fooling around with, but I mean to tell (with a little help) of some
experiences I had the first winter after I struck out for myself.

I was brought up in Ohio, where my father was a country blacksmith and
had a small farm. His name was William Pitcher, but, being well liked
by all and a square man, everybody called him Old Bill Pitcher. I was
named Judson, which had been my mother's name before she was married,
so I was called Jud Pitcher; and when I was ten years old I knew every
horse for a dozen miles around, and most of the dogs.

It was September 16th, in the late eighteen-seventies, that I first
clapped eyes on Track's End, in the Territory of Dakota. The name of
the place has since been changed. I remember the date well, for on
that d