278 The Wilderness Hunter 



which lead men afar into the forests and moun- 

 tains, stand above athletic exercises; exactly as 

 among the latter, rugged outdoor games, like foot- 

 ball and lacrosse, are much superior to mere gym- 

 nastics and calisthenics. 



With a few exceptions, the men among us who 

 have stood foremost in political leadership, like their 

 fellows who have led our armies, have been of stal- 

 wart frame and sound bodily health. When they 

 sprang from the frontier folk, as did Lincoln and 

 Andrew Jackson, they usually hunted much in their 

 youth, if only as an incident in the prolonged war- 

 fare waged by themselves and their kinsmen against 

 the wild forces of nature. Old Israel Putnam's fa- 

 mous wolf-killing feat comes strictly under this head. 

 Doubtless he greatly enjoyed the excitement of the 

 adventure; but he went into it as a matter of busi- 

 ness, not of sport. The wolf, the last of its kind in 

 his neighborhood, had taken heavy toll of the flocks 

 of himself and his friends; when they found the 

 deep cave in which it had made its den it readily 

 beat off the dogs sent in to assail it ; and so Putnam 

 crept in himself, with his torch and his flint-lock 

 musket, and shot the beast where it lay. 



When such men lived in long settled and thickly 

 peopled regions, they needs had to accommodate 

 themselves to the conditions and put up with hum- 

 bler forms of sport. Webster, like his great rival 



