20 THE WILDERNESS HUNTER. 



seas of grass to the Rocky Mountains, and then 

 through their rugged defiles onwards to the Pa- 

 cific Ocean. In every work of exploration, and 

 in all the earlier battles with the original lords of 

 the western and southwestern lands, whether 

 Indian or Mexican, the adventurous hunters 

 played the leading part ; while close behind 

 came the swarm of hard, dogged, border- 

 farmers, a masterful race, good fighters and 

 good breeders, as all masterful races must 

 be. 



Very characteristic in its way was the career 

 of quaint, honest, fearless Davy Crockett, the 

 Tennessee rifleman and Whig Congressman, 

 perhaps the best shot in all our country, 

 whose skill in the use of his favorite weapon 

 passed into a proverb, and who ended his 

 days by a hero's death in the ruins of the 

 Alamo. An even more notable man was an- 

 other mighty hunter, Houston, who when a 

 boy ran away to the Indians ; who while still 

 a lad returned to his own people to serve 

 under Andrew Jackson in the campaigns 

 which thatgreatest of all the backwoods leaders 

 waged against the Creeks, the Spaniards, and 

 the British. He was wounded at the storm- 

 ing of one of the strongholds of Red Eagle's 

 doomed warriors, and returned to his Tennes- 

 see home to rise to high civil honor, and be- 

 come the foremost man of his State. Then, 

 while Governor of Tennessee, in a sudden 

 fit of moody anger, and of mad longing for 

 the unfettered life of the wilderness, he aban- 

 doned his office, his people, and his race, and 

 fled to the Cherokees beyond the Mississippi. 

 For years he lived as one of their chiefs ; 



