rtility of resource. In
them was renewed, with all its ancient energy, that wild and daring
spirit, that force and hardihood of mind, which marked our barbarous
ancestors of Germany and Norway. These sons of the wilderness still
survive. We may find them to this day, not in the valley of the Ohio,
nor on the shores of the lakes, but far westward on the desert range of
the buffalo, and among the solitudes of Oregon. Even now, while I write,
some lonely trapper is climbing the perilous defiles of the Rocky
Mountains, his strong frame cased in time-worn buck-skin, his rifle
griped in his sinewy hand. Keenly he peers from side to side, lest
Blackfoot or Arapahoe should ambuscade his path. The rough earth is his
bed, a morsel of dried meat and a draught of water are his food and
drink, and death and danger his companions. No anchorite could fare
worse, no hero could dare more; yet his wild, hard life has resistless
charms; and while he can wield a rifle, he will never leave it. Go with
him to the rendezvous, and he is a stoic no more. Here, rioting among
his comrades, his native appetites break loose in mad excess, in deep
carouse, and desperate gaming. Then follow close the quarrel, the
challenge, the fight,--two rusty rifles and fifty yards of prairie.

* * * * *

From "The Discovery of the Great West."

=_146._= EXPLORATION OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER.

The river twisted among the lakes and marshes choked with wild rice;
and, but for their guides, they could scarcely have followed the
perplexed and narrow channel. It brought them at last to the portage;
where, after carrying their canoes a mile and a half over the prairie
and through the marsh, they launched them on the Wisconsin, bade
farewell to the waters that flowed to the St. Lawrence, and committed
themselves to the current that was to bear them they knew not
whither,--perhaps to the Gulf of Mexico, perhaps to the South Sea or
the Gulf of California. They glided calmly down the tranquil stream, by
islands choked with trees and matted with entangling grape-vines; by
forests, groves, and prairies,--the parks and pleasure-grounds of a
prodigal nature; by thickets and marshes and broad bare sand-bars; under
the shadowing trees, between whose tops looked down from afar the bold
brow of some woody bluff. At night, the bivouac,--the canoes inverted on
the bank, the flickering fire, the meal of bison-flesh or venison, the
evening pipes and sl