PEDDLING IN THE UNITED STATES 345 



for next day there would be cowboys and farmers ridino- 

 in from fifty miles around, and even from such articles as 

 I carried I would sometimes make more than a thousand 

 dollars in a day's sales. This may seem a large sum to 

 take in so short a time, but it is to be remembered that 

 there is five or six days' travelling for one of trading, and 

 that the expenses are heavy. I always had at least two 

 men to assist me, and ten or twelve horses and mules ; 

 and though the latter sometimes picked up a good deal 

 of forage at the camping place, they had to be kept in 

 good condition to enable them to perform their heavy 

 work, often dragging eight or ten tons over trackless 

 wildernesses. 



My headquarters, in the latter part of my career, was 

 at Memphis, on the lower Mississippi, but often the 

 round of trading calls I made extended to quite a 

 thousand miles, which distance, including stoppages, 

 generally occupied a little more than four months in 

 performing. 



During these wanderings I led a very regular life, 

 inconsistent as that may seem with, I had nearly written, 

 perpetual motion. But the waggon was really my home. 

 I had everything fitted for my comfort as far as that 

 could be done in such a very limited space, and though, 

 I must confess, rather cramped till the sale of the greater 

 part of the goods made room, I contrived to eat, sleep, 

 and follow my favourite occupations of reading and 

 writing quite as freely and comfortably as I ever did 

 in lodgings. 



Of course the waggon and its contents were of con- 

 siderable value, and, naturally enough, might have been 

 thought to offer a great temptation to dishonest wanderers 

 or roving Indians, of which there were not a few lurking 

 about the wilds when I first commenced this life ; but, as 

 I have already said several times, I never suffered a disaster 

 of this kind, though, looking back at the many risks I ran, 

 I wonder that I came oft' so well. The danger was often 



