putation which
has made them spoken of throughout Europe.

"On board of the boats thus navigated our merchants entrusted valuable
cargoes, without insurance, and with no other guarantee than the receipt
of the steersman, who possessed no property but his boat; and the
confidence so reposed was seldom abused."

Every class of men has its hero, as those always will be, who, from
energy of character and natural endowment, are superior to their
fellows. The most remarkable person among these people was one _Mike
Fink_, who was their acknowledged leader for many years. His fame was
established from New Orleans to Pittsburg. He was endowed with gigantic
strength, courage, and presence of mind--his rifle was unerring, and his
conscience never troubled his repose. Every one was afraid of him;
every one was anxious to be on good terms with him, for he was a regular
freebooter; and although he spared his friends, he gave no quarter to
the lives or properties of others. Mike Fink was not originally a
boatmen: at an early age he had enlisted in the company of scouts,
another variety of employment produced by circumstances--a species of
solitary rangers employed by the American government, and acting as
spies, to watch the motions of the Indians on the frontiers. This
peculiar service is thus described by the author I have before quoted:--

"At that time, Pittsburg was on the extreme verge of white population,
and the spies, who were constantly employed, generally extended their
_reconnaissance_ forty or fifty miles to the west of this post. They
went out singly, lived as did the Indian, and in every respect became
perfectly assimilated in habits, taste, and feeling, with the red men of
the desert. A kind of border warfare was kept up, and the scout thought
it as praiseworthy to bring in the scalp of a Shawnee, as the skin of a
panther. He would remain in the woods for weeks together, using parched
corn for bread, and depending on his rifle for his meat--and slept at
night in perfect comfort, rolled in his blanket."

In this service Mike Fink acquired a great reputation for coolness and
courage, and many are the stories told of his adventures with the
Indians. It has been incontestably proved, that the white man, when
accustomed to the woods, is much more acute than the Indian himself in
that woodcraft of every species, in which the Indian is supposed to be
such an adept; such as discovering a trail by the print of a mo