48 The Winning of the West 



up of the individual contests of frontiersman and 

 Indian, went on almost without a break. The sieges, 

 surprises, and skirmishes in which large bands took 

 part were chronicled; but there is little reference 

 in the books to the countless conflicts wherein only 

 one or two men on a side were engaged. The West 

 could never have been conquered, in the teeth of so 

 formidable and ruthless a foe, had it not been for 

 the personal prowess of the pioneers themselves. 

 Their natural courage and hardihood, and their long 

 training in forest warfare, 44 made them able to hold 

 their own and to advance step by step, where a peace- 

 able population would have been instantly butchered 

 or driven off. No regular army could have done 

 what they did. Only trained woodsmen could have 

 led the white advance into the vast forest-clad re- 

 gions, out of which so many fair States have been 

 hewn. The ordinary regular soldier was almost as 

 helpless before the Indians in the woods as he would 

 have been if blindfolded and opposed to an antago- 

 nist whose eyes were left uncovered. 



Much the greatest loss, both tb Indians and 

 whites, was caused by this unending personal war- 

 'fare. Every hunter, almost every settler, was al- 

 ways in imminent danger of Indian attack, and in 

 return was ever ready, either alone or with one or 

 two companions, to make excursions against the 



44 The last point is important. No Europeans could have 

 held their own for a fortnight in Kentucky ; nor is it likely 

 that the Western men twenty years before, at the time of 

 Braddock's war, could have successfully colonized such a far- 

 off country. 



