194 The Winning of the West 



pies of bygone ages. The standard by which inter 

 national, and even domestic, morality is judged, 

 must vary for different countries under widely dif 

 ferent conditions, for exactly the same reasons that 

 it must vary for different periods of the world's his 

 tory. We can not expect the refined virtues of a 

 highly artificial civilization from frontiersmen who 

 for generations have been roughened and hardened 

 by the same kind of ferocious wilderness toil that 

 once fell to the lot of their remote barbarian an 

 cestors. 



The Kentuckian, from his clearing in the great 

 forest, looked with bold and greedy eyes at the Span 

 ish possessions, much as Markman, Goth, and Frank 

 had once peered through their marshy woods at the 

 Roman dominions. He possessed the virtues proper 

 to a young and vigorous race; he was trammeled 

 by few misgivings as to the rights of the men whose 

 lands he coveted ; he felt that the future was for the 

 stout-hearted, and not for the weakling. He was 

 continually hampered by the advancing civilization 

 of which he was the vanguard, and of which his 

 own sons were destined to form an important part. 

 He rebelled against the restraints imposed by his 

 own people behind him exactly as he felt impelled to 

 attack the alien peoples in front of him. He did 

 not care very much what form the attack took. On 

 the whole he preferred that it should be avowed 

 war, whether waged under the stars and stripes or 

 under some flag new-raised by himself and his fel 

 low-adventurers of the border. In default of such a 



