elf passed the most important
years of his youth heading the westward movement of his people; clad in
the traditional dress of the backwoodsmen, in tasselled hunting-shirt
and fringed leggings, he led them to battle against the French and
Indians, and helped to clear the way for the American advance. The only
other man who in the American roll of honor stands by the side of
Washington, was born when the distinctive work of the pioneers had
ended; and yet he was bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh; for
from the loins of this gaunt frontier folk sprang mighty Abraham
Lincoln.

APPENDICES.

* * * * *

APPENDIX A--TO CHAPTER I.

During the early part of this century our more pretentious historians
who really did pay some heed to facts and wrote books that--in addition
to their mortal dulness--were quite accurate, felt it undignified and
beneath them to notice the deeds of mere ignorant Indian fighters. They
had lost all power of doing the best work; for they passed their lives
in a circle of small literary men, who shrank from any departure from
conventional European standards.

On the other hand, the men who wrote history for the mass of our people,
not for the scholars, although they preserved much important matter, had
not been educated up to the point of appreciating the value of evidence,
and accepted undoubted facts and absurd traditions with equal good
faith. Some of them (notably Flint and one or two of Boon's other
biographers) evidently scarcely regarded truthfulness and accuracy of
statement as being even desirable qualities in a history. Others wished
to tell the facts, but lacked all power of discrimination. Certain of
their books had a very wide circulation. In some out-of-the-way places
they formed, with the almanac, the staple of secular literature. But
they did not come under the consideration of trained scholars, so their
errors remained uncorrected; and at this day it is a difficult, and
often an impossible task, to tell which of the statements to accept and
which to reject.

Many of the earliest writers lived when young among the old companions
of the leading pioneers, and long afterwards wrote down from memory the
stories the old men had told them. They were themselves often clergymen,
and were usually utterly inexperienced in wild backwoods life, in spite
of their early surroundings--exactly as to-day any town in the Rocky
Mountains is sure to contain so