Louisiana and Aaron Burr 271 



to trap beaver. He would not even join himself 

 to the other travelers for a night, preferring to 

 plunge at once into the wild, lonely life he so loved. 

 His strong character and keen mind struck the Eng- 

 lishman, who yet saw that the old hunter belonged 

 to the class of pioneers who could never themselves 

 civilize the land, because they ever fled from the 

 face of the very civilization for which they had made 

 ready the land. In Boone's soul the fierce impa- 

 tience of all restraint burned like a fire. He told 

 the Englishman that he no longer cared for Ken- 

 tucky, because its people had grown too easy of 

 life; and that he wished to move to some place 

 where men still lived untrammeled and unshackled, 

 and enjoyed uncontrolled the free blessings of nat- 

 ure. 35 The isolation of his life and the frequency 

 with which he changed his abode brought out the 

 frontiersman's wonderful capacity to shift for him- 

 self, but it hindered the development of his power 

 of acting in combination with others of his kind. 

 The first comers to the new country were so restless 

 and so intolerant of the presence of their kind, that 

 as neighbors came in they moved ever westward. 

 They could not act with their fellows. 



Of course in the men who succeeded the first 

 pioneers, and who were the first permanent settlers, 

 the restlessness and the desire for a lonely life were 

 much less developed. These men wandered only 

 until they found a good piece of land, not because the 



35 Francis Bailey's "Journal of a Tour in Unsettled Parts 

 of North America in 1796 and 1797," p. 234. 



