THE AMERICAN" WILDERNESS. 21 



until one day, as he lay in ignoble ease and 

 sloth, a rider from the south, from the roll- 

 ing plains of the San Antonio and Brazos, 

 brought word that the Texans were up, and 

 in doubtful struggle striving to wrest their free- 

 dom from the lancers and carbineers of Santa 

 Anna. Then his dark soul flamed again 

 into burning life ; riding by night and day he 

 joined the risen Texans, was hailed by them 

 as a heaven-sent leader, and at the San Ja- 

 cinto led them on to the overthrow of the Mexi- 

 can host. Thus the stark hunter, who had 

 been alternately Indian fighter and Indian 

 chief, became the President of the new 

 Republic, and, after its admission into the 

 United States, a Senator at Washington ; and, 

 to his high honor, he remained to the end 

 of his days staunchly loyal to the flag of the 

 Union. 



By the time that Crockett fell, and Houston 

 became the darling leader of the Texans, the 

 typical hunter and Indian fighter had ceased 

 to be a backwoodsman ; he had become a 

 plains-man, or mountain-man ; for the frontier, 

 east of which he never willingly went, had 

 been pushed beyond the Mississippi. Rest- 

 less, reckless, and hardy, he spent years of 

 his life in lonely wanderings through the 

 Rockies as a trapper ; he guarded the slowly 

 moving caravans, which for purposes of trade 

 journeyed over the dangerous Santa Fe trail ; 

 he guided the large parties of frontier settlers 

 who, driving before them their cattle, with all 

 their household goods in their white-topped 

 wagons, spent perilous months and seasons 

 on their weary way to Oregon or California. 



