26 The Winning of the West 



theories of liberty and justice; but they were too 

 shrewd and hard-headed to try to build up a gov 

 ernment on an entirely new foundation, when they 

 had ready to hand materials with which they were 

 familiar. They knew by experience the workings 

 of the county system; all they did was to alter the 

 immediate channel from which the court drew its 

 powers, and to adapt the representation to the needs 

 of a community where constant warfare obliged the 

 settlers to gather in little groups, which served as 

 natural units. 



When the settlers first came to the country they 

 found no Indians living in it, no signs of cultivation 

 or cleared land, and nothing to show that for ages 

 past it had been inhabited. It was a vast plain, cov 

 ered with woods and canebrakes, through which 

 the wild herds had beaten out broad trails. The 

 only open places were the licks, sometimes as large 

 as corn-fields, where the hoofs of the game had 

 trodden the ground bare of vegetation, and chan 

 neled its surface with winding seams and gullies. 

 It is even doubtful if the spot of bare ground which 

 Mansker called an "old field" or sometimes a 

 "Chickasaw old field" was not merely one of these 

 licks. Buffalo, deer, and bear abounded ; elk, wolves, 

 and panthers were plentiful. 



Yet there were many signs that in long bygone 

 times a numerous population had dwelt in the land. 

 Round every spring were many graves, built in a 

 peculiar way, and covered eight or ten inches deep 

 by mould. In some places there were earth-covered 



