The Indian Wars, 1784-1787 87 



early pioneers, of the men who did the hardest and 

 roughest work, were over; farms were being laid 

 out and towns were growing up among the felled 

 forest from which the game and the Indians had 

 alike been driven. There was still plenty of room 

 for the rude cabin and ^stump-dotted clearing of the 

 ordinary frontier settler, the wood-chopper and 

 game hunter. Folk of the common backwoods type 

 were as yet more numerous than any others among 

 the settlers. In addition there were planters from 

 among the gentry of the sea-coast; there were men 

 of means who had bought great tracts of wild land ; 

 there were traders with more energy than capital; 

 there were young lawyers; there were gentlemen 

 with a taste for an unfettered life of great oppor 

 tunity; in short there were adventurers of every 

 kind. 



All men who deemed that they could swim in 

 troubled waters were drawn toward the new coun 

 try. The more turbulent and ambitious spirits saw 

 roads to distinction in frontier warfare, politics, 

 and diplomacy. Merchants dreamed of many for 

 tunate ventures, in connection with the river trade 

 or the overland commerce by pack-train. Lawyers 

 not only expected to make their living by their 

 proper calling, but also to rise to the first places in 

 the commonwealths, for in these new communities, 

 as in the older States, the law was then the most hon 

 ored of the professions, and that which most surely 

 led to high social and political standing. But the 

 one great attraction for all classes was the chance 



