And struck it with its thunderbolt in forehead and in flank,
The spatter of the musket-shot, the rifles' whistling rain,--
The sandhills drift round hope forlorn that never marched again."

--_Benjamin F. Taylor_.




When Wilderness Was King


CHAPTER I

A MESSAGE FROM THE WEST

Surely it was no longer ago than yesterday. I had left the scythe
lying at the edge of the long grass, and gone up through the rows of
nodding Indian corn to the house, seeking a draught of cool water from
the spring. It was hot in the July sunshine; the thick forest on every
side intercepted the breeze, and I had been at work for some hours.
How pleasant and inviting the little river looked in the shade of the
great trees, while, as I paused a moment bending over the high bank, I
could see a lazy pike nosing about among the twisted roots below.

My mother, her sleeves rolled high over her round white arms, was in
the dark interior of the milk-house as I passed, and spoke to me
laughingly; and I could perceive my father sitting in his great
splint-bottomed chair just within the front doorway, and I marked how
the slight current of air toyed with his long gray beard. The old