2 CAMP-FIRES OF A NATURALIST. 



mother was restored to health the baby boy was strong 

 and lusty. 



This babe was Lewis Lindsay Dyche and his life 

 almost began at a camp-fire. With the precocity 

 often seen in pioneer life he seemed to pass from in- 

 fancy to manhood with no intervening period of boy- 

 ishness or youth. All the pleasures of his tender 

 years were combined with business. At the age of 

 nine he was hunting and trapping along the banks 

 of the Waukarussa. His playmates were his dogs ; 

 his playthings were the beasts and birds ; his play- 

 grounds were the woods and prairies and the camps 

 of the Indians. His hard lot and that of his father 

 and mother taught him the value of money. Work 

 was as natural to him as play to ordinary boys. 

 For a five-cent piece he would follow the horses of 

 the sorghum mill all day long, and this money would 

 be hoarded with that received for the furs obtained 

 during the winter's trapping and hunting. 



All this time the alphabet was a mystery to 

 him, and while he was in demand among the 

 neighbors as a worker, he realized that to succeed in 

 life, even among frontiersmen, it was necessary for 

 him to have other learning than that obtained in 

 the woods. At the age of sixteen he was tall and 

 well formed, with the habits and appearance of a 

 man. He had learned the rudiments of reading at 

 the age of twelve, but shame prevented the tall, raw- 

 boned boy from showing his ignorance in the village 

 school, and he advanced slowly in his learning. At 

 the age of sixteen he found that his hoarded money 

 had accumulated until he was the possessor of $600. 



