sweeps over their mighty plains.

There is a romantic and exquisitely beautiful spot on the banks of one
of the tributaries above referred to--long stretch of mingled woodland
and meadow, with a magnificent lake lying like a gem in its green
bosom--which goes by the name of the Mustang Valley. This remote vale,
even at the present day, is but thinly peopled by white men, and is
still a frontier settlement round which the wolf and the bear prowl
curiously, and from which the startled deer bounds terrified away. At
the period of which we write the valley had just been taken possession
of by several families of squatters, who, tired of the turmoil and the
squabbles of the _then_ frontier settlements, had pushed boldly into
the far west to seek a new home for themselves, where they could have
"elbow room," regardless alike of the dangers they might encounter in
unknown lands and of the Redskins who dwelt there.

The squatters were well armed with axes, rifles, and ammunition. Most
of the women were used to dangers and alarms, and placed implicit
reliance in the power of their fathers, husbands, and brothers to
protect them; and well they might, for a bolder set of stalwart men
than these backwoodsmen never trod the wilderness. Each had been
trained to the use of the rifle and the axe from infancy, and many of
them had spent so much of their lives in the woods that they were more
than a match for the Indian in his own peculiar pursuits of hunting
and war. When the squatters first issued from the woods bordering the
valley, an immense herd of wild horses or mustangs were browsing on
the plain. These no sooner beheld the cavalcade of white men than,
uttering a wild neigh, they tossed their flowing manes in the breeze
and dashed away like a whirlwind. This incident procured the valley
its name.