THE WILDERNESS HUNTER 



CHAPTER I 



THE AMERICAN WILDERNESS; WILDERNESS HUNTERS 

 AND WILDERNESS GAME 



MANIFOLD are the shapes taken by the Ameri- 

 can wilderness. In the east, from the Atlan- 

 tic Coast to the Mississippi Valley, lies a land of 

 magnificent hardwood forest. In endless variety 

 and beauty, the trees cover the ground, save only 

 where they have been cleared away by man, or 

 where toward the west the expanse of the forest is 

 broken by fertile prairies. Toward the north, this 

 region of hardwood trees merges insensibly into the 

 southern extension of the great sub-arctic forest; 

 here the silver stems of birches gleam against the 

 sombre background of coniferous evergreens. In 

 the southeast again, by the hot, oozy coasts of the 

 South Atlantic and the Gulf, the forest becomes 

 semi-tropical ; palms wave their feathery fronds, and 

 the tepid swamps teem with reptile life. 



Some distance beyond the Mississippi, stretching 

 from Texas to North Dakota, and westward to the 

 Rocky Mountains, lies the plains country. This is 



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