The American Indians. Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

signs of human habitation appeared in the form of enclosed fields. The sun sunk below the hills, as we entered this valley, and we soon had the glimpse of a dwelling. Some woodcock flew up as we hastened forward, and we were not long in waiting for our formal announcement in the loud and long continued barking of dogs. It required the stern commands of their master, before they slunk back and became quiet. It was a small log tenement of the usual construction on the frontiers, and afforded us the usual hospitality and ready accommodation. They gave us warm cakes of corn bread, and fine rich milk. We spread our blankets before an evening's fire, and enjoyed a good night's rest. Butcher here, I think, had his last meal of corn, and made no attempt to return. With the earliest streaks of day light, we re-adjusted his pack, and again set forward.

CHAPTER II.

       Table of Contents

      Reach a hunter's cabin on the outskirts of the wilderness—He agrees to accompany us—Enter the Ozark Hills—Encounter an encampment of the Delaware Indians—Character of the country—Its alpine air, and the purity of its waters.—Ascend to the source of the Merrimack—Reach a game country—Deserted by the hunter and guide, and abandoned to individual exertions in these arts.

      Every joint labour, which proceeds on the theory, that each person engaged in it is to render some personal service, must, in order that it may go on pleasantly and succeed well, have a definite order, or rule of progress; and this is as requisite in a journey in the wilderness as any where else. Our rule was to lead the pack horse, and to take the compass and guide ahead, alternately, day by day. It was thought, I had the best art in striking and making a fire, and when we halted for the night, always did this, while my companion procured water and put it in a way to boil for tea. We carried tea, as being lighter and more easy to make than coffee. In this way we divided, as equally as possible, the daily routine of duties, and went on pleasantly. We had now reached the last settlement on the frontier, and after a couple of hours' walk, from our last place of lodging, we reached the last house, on the outer verge of the wilderness. It was a small, newly erected log hut, occupied by a hunter of the name of Roberts, and distant about 20 miles from, and south-west of Potosi. Our approach here was also heralded by dogs. Had we been wolves or panthers, creeping upon the premises at midnight, they could not have performed their duty more noisily. Truly this was a very primitive dwelling, and as recent in its structure as it was primitive. Large fallen trees lay about, just as the axeman had felled them, and partly consumed by fire. The effect of this partial burning had been only to render these huge trunks black and hideous. One of them lay in front of the cottage. In other places were to be seen deer skins stretched to dry; and deers' feet and antlers lay here and there. There was not a foot of land in cultivation. It was quite evident at first sight, that we had reached the dwelling of a border hunter, and not a tiller of the ground. But the owner was absent, as we learned from his wife, a spare, shrewd dark-skinned little woman, drest in buckskin, who issued from the door before we reached it, and welcomed us by the term of "Strangers." Although this is a western term, which supplies the place of the word "friend," in other sections of the union, and she herself seemed to be thoroughly a native of these latitudes, no Yankee could have been more inquisitive, in one particular department of enquiry, namely the department relative to the chace. She inquired our object—the course and distance we proposed to travel, and the general arrangements of horse-gear, equipage, &c. She told us of the danger of encountering the Osages, and scrutinized our arms. Such an examination would indeed, for its thoroughness, have put a lad to his trumps, who had come prepared for his first quarter's examination at a country academy. She told us, con amore, that her husband would be back soon—as soon indeed as we could get our breakfast, and that he would be glad to accompany us, as far as Ashley's Cave, or perhaps farther. This was an opportunity not to be slighted. We agreed to wait, and prepare our morning's meal, to which she contributed some well baked corn cakes. By this time, and before indeed we had been long there, Roberts came in. It is said that a hunter's life is a life of feasting or fasting. It appeared to be one of the latter seasons, with him. He had been out to scour the precincts, for a meat breakfast, but came home empty handed. He was desirous to go out in the direction we were steering, which he represented to abound in game, but feared to venture far alone, on account of the rascally Osages. He did not fear the Delawares, who were near by. He readily accepted our offer to accompany us as hunter. Roberts, like his forest help-mate, was clothed in deer skin. He was a rather chunky, stout, middle sized man, with a ruddy face, cunning features, and a bright unsteady eye. Such a fellow's final destination would not be a very equivocal matter, were he a resident of the broad neighbourhood of Sing Sing, or "sweet Auburn:" but here, he was a man that might, perhaps, be trusted on an occasion like this, and we, at any rate, were glad to have his services on the terms stipulated. Even while we were talking he began to clean his rifle, and adjust his leathern accoutrements: he then put several large cakes of corn bread in a sack, and in a very short time he brought a stout little horse out of a log pen, which served for a barn; and clapping an old saddle on his back and mounting him, with his rifle in one hand, said, "I am ready," and led off. We now had a guide, as well as a hunter, and threw this burden wholly on him. Our course lay up a long ridge of hard bound clay and chert soil, in the direction of the sources of the Marameg, or, as it is now universally called and written, Merrimack. After travelling about four miles we suddenly descended from an acclivity into a grassy, woodless valley, with a brisk clear stream winding through it, and several lodges of Indians planted on its borders. This, our guide told us, was the Ozaw Fork of the Merrimack, (in modern geographical parlance Ozark.) And here we found the descendants and remainder of that once powerful tribe of whom William Penn purchased the site of Philadelphia, and whose ancient dominion extended, at the earliest certain historical era, along the banks the Lennapihittuck, or Delaware river. Two of them were at home, it being a season of the year, and time of day, when the men are out hunting. Judging from peculiarity of features, manners and dress, it would seem to be impossible that any people, should have remained so long in contact with or juxtaposition to the European races and changed so little, in all that constitutes national and personal identity. Roberts looked with no very friendly eye upon these ancient lords of the forest, the whole sum of his philosophy and philanthropy being measured by the very tangible circle of prairie and forests, which narrowed his own hunting grounds. They were even then, deemed to have been injudiciously located, by intelligent persons in the west, and have long since removed to a permanent location, out of the corporate limits of the States and Territories, at the junction of the river Konga with the Missouri. I should have been pleased to have lengthened our short halt, but the word seemed with him and Enobitti to be "onward," and onward we pushed. We were now fairly in the Ozark chain—a wide and almost illimitable tract, of which it may be said, that the vallies only are susceptible of future cultivation. The intervening ridges and mountains are nearly destitute of forest, often perfectly so, and in almost all cases, sterile, and unfit for the plough. It is probable sheep might be raised on some of these eminences, which possess a sufficiency of soil to permit the grasses to be sown. Geologically, it has a basis of limestones, resting on sandstones. Unfortunately for its agricultural character, the surface has been covered with a foreign diluvium of red clay filled with chips of hornstone, chert and broken quartz, which make the soil hard and compact. Its trees are few and stunted; its grass coarse. In looking for the origin of such a soil, it seems probable to have resulted from broken down slates and shists on the upper Missouri and below the range of the Rocky Mountains, in which these broken and imbedded substances originally constituted veins. It is only in the vallies, and occasional plains, that a richer and more carbonaceous soil has accumulated. The purest springs, however, gush out of its hills; its atmosphere is fine and healthful, and it constitutes a theatre of Alpine attractions, which will probably render it, in future years, the resort of shepherds, lovers of mountain scenery, and valetudinarians. There is another remark to be made of the highland tracts of the Ozark range. They look, in their natural state, more sterile than they actually are, from the effects of autumnal fires. These fires, continued for ages by the natives, to clear the ground for hunting, have had the effect not only to curtail and destroy large vegetation, but all the carbonaceous particles of the top soil have been burned, leaving the surface in the autumn, rough, red, dry and hard. When a plough comes to be put into such a surface, it throws up quite a different soil; and the effects of