300 The Winning of the West 



first-comers from the East were not traders at all, 

 and were hunters rather than trappers. Boone was 

 a type of this class, and Boone's descendants went 

 westward generation by generation until they 

 reached the Pacific. 



Close behind the mere hunter came the rude hunt 

 er-settler. He pastured his stock on the wild range, 

 and lived largely by his skill with the rifle. He 

 worked with simple tools and he did his work 

 roughly. His squalid cabin was destitute of the 

 commonest comforts; the blackened stumps and 

 dead, girdled trees stood thick in his small and 

 badly tilled field. He was adventurous, restless, 

 shiftless, and he felt ill at ease and cramped by the 

 presence of more industrious neighbors. As they 

 pressed in round about him he would sell his claim, 

 gather his cattle and his scanty store of tools and 

 household goods, and again wander forth to seek 

 uncleared land. The Lincolns, the forbears of the 

 great President, were a typical family of this class. 



Most of the frontiersmen of these two types 

 moved fitfully westward with the frontier itself, 

 or near it, but in each place where they halted, or 

 where the advance of the frontier was for the mo 

 ment stayed, some of their people remained to grow 

 up and mix with the rest of the settlers. 



The third class consisted of the men who were 

 thrifty, as well as adventurous, the men who were 

 even more industrious than restless. These were 

 they who entered in to hold the land, and who 

 handed it on as an inheritance to their children 



